The Chronicles of Rapina, Chapters 49-52 Land Of Desolation Back to contents page Back to the Jooldig, page [Rapina]049 Land of Desolation [Rapina]050 Lady Doe [Rapina]051 Leeched [Rapina]052 A Night As Dark As Sable [Rapina]049 Land of Desolation Rapina screamed and shuddered as a massive orgasm shook her sweat-soaked body. She bucked her hips forward and backward gasping with pleasure as she came. She only barely managed to touch the minds of the smiths at the last second, sending a calming message at last. The bucking of the two half orcs began to slow to a saner pace. Rapina panted for breath as the two smiths continued to plunge in and out of her, their glistening pink spiral-ribbed cocks teasing each other through the flesh between her vagina and rectum. Her ride had been a bit wilder than she had expected. On her first orgasm she had lost control and touched their minds with her own lust. Her second orgasm had carried a message of alliance, and after that her orgasms had become so intense she had done nothing but buck and squeal with pleasure. "Hruuuuuuunk!" Daing grunted long and hard as he spent yet again into the raging lusts of Chontral Melina. His orgasm was long and intense. Her charmed cunt squeezed him rhythmically as if to milk the very last drop of lust from his loins. He could not remember ever having creamed a woman so many times without a rest. Droplets of sweat shook from Tangzar's fatigued body as he slapped his loins against Melina's generous jiggling butt. "Rreeeeeeehruunk!" He squealed as he jetted hot cum deep into her clutching rump. Her caress along the sides of Daing's face was light with mystic precision as she pushed her firm cheeks against Tzangzar arching her back to receive the power of his spend. "Clang... ... ... Clang... ... ...Clang." Tzangzar collapsed on Melina's back and perked his ears. The clanging on the gate was spaced as though the one knocking had grown fatigued with repeated effort and had decided to clang the gate regularly but much less frequently. Tzangzar groaned and pried himself off Melina's back. His knees were a little weak causing him to squat as he walked before he recovered himself. Tzangzar peered out the door and across the courtyard. "Chontral Oagmak is waiting. There is someone with him carrying a suit of spiked plate. Perhaps it must be resized." Each day for the next three days, Rapina was called back to the smiths for fitting and to heat their hardened rods in the forge of her loins. The party among the Ragebloods seemed to go in cycles of lust, drunkenness and insensibility. Rapina ate and drank modestly, washed frequently and slaked the lusts of her kahlorcs interminably. Her grasp of orcish improved from use and exposure to words and phrases she had not yet learned. During the times most of the orcs slept, Chontral Oagmak gave her additional instruction in orcish. He felt it was in the best interest of the tribe for her to speak their language well. By the morning of the fourth day, Kahl Rageblood had drunk up the last of the alcoholic swill they had bought in town. The hung-over orcs began to pack up their belongings at a pace that was too slow even to be called leisurely. By afternoon it was obvious camp would not be struck until the following morning. In the afternoon, Krahl Hluk and two bodyguards took Rapina to the armorers to retrieve the finished armor. When they arrived, Hluk began to don his re-sized armor. Tzangzar showed Rapina how to put on and adjust her foundation garments and armor pieces. Since orcs never stopped growing, provisions had been made on most pieces of her armor for some adjustment in the fit. Tzangzar had worked with a seamstress in town to produce Rapina's foundation garments. These included dark elven style panties in a variety of colors that featured reinforced openings at their crotches, and matching bustiers that cupped the lower compass of her breasts leaving her nipples accessible to roving lips. Next there was a tunic and leggings of silk padding, notable for the areas they did not cover. The armor itself consisted of several parts. The helmet was a smooth deep dwarven plate helm with an open face from the forehead down and a nose guard. It had flared edges at the bottom to keep the rain from running down her neck and an optional dark-elven chain veil that could go across her face from just below her eyes. The breastplate was a combination of a half breastplate of deep dwarven metal that covered her upper chest and back and dark-elven chainmail that covered her down to her hips. Her breasts were contained in expandable banded cups that were built into the breastplate. A band of plate went over her hips. Both her banded skirts and her chainmail leggings attached to it. The dark-elven chain leggings were cut high towards her hips almost to the point of being a strap at the hip and low towards her inner thighs so that they left her crotch and butt uncovered beneath her banded skirts. "It is beautiful," Rapina beamed hugging each of the smiths in turn once she had donned her new armor. Both of them looked very proud. "It is only fitting that a Chontral's armor should fit the quality of her chont," Tzangzar bowed. "Chont schmont. You shared the full measure of your robust charms, juicy cunt and thucking prowess with us, Melina; It was our pleasure to share the full measure of our smithing prowess with you," Daing beamed. "There is some extra mail and plate in the sack there for repairs. We want you to be protected, but we know you will not always be near us when your armor is damaged." "Thank you mastersmith Daing, and thank you mastersmith Tzangzar. I will think of you whenever my armor protects me and each time I put it on or take it off, or thuck while wearing it." Daing grinned like a pirate, "Hup, don't thank us yet, the armor has not yet undergone its final testing. Kahl Rageblood has given us the opportunity to see that your armor has properly grown more robust to contain your swollen udds, but the final test of your armor has not yet been done." Rapina blushed; the long party had left her breasts flushed and swollen firmer and larger than ever before. Hluk finished donning his re-sized spiked plate chief's armor. He moved around in it, and then nodded to the smiths in satisfaction. "Kahl Hluk, since you are Kahl of Rageblood, would you like to be the first to test Chontral Melina's new armor? It is designed so she can practice her chont while she and her partner are both armored." Hluk grinned, "I will test it." "My friend Tzangzar suggested this refinement. Daing pinched together two small studs spaced far apart just above Rapina's right breast. He pulled down the bands over her breast so that they nested together to cup only the lower part of her breast, exposing the lion's share of it to the air. "Clever," Khal Hluk smiled. He kissed Rapina's swollen right nipple then undid the cup over her left breast and slid the bands down to land a kiss on her second nipple. "Most cunning." Rapina grinned. Hluck removed his codpiece, lifted Rapina up, and laid her over a large anvil standing in the courtyard. He lifted her banded skirt and watched the contour reverse to hug her body. "Good, even an orc with skirts in front would be able to thuck Chontral Melina." Hluck entered Rapina and began to pump. His spikes slid harmlessly across her banded skirt. "It is working." Hluk quickened his pace and thrust more forcefully. "Fine... armor... Uuuhhrrruuuuk!" Hluk grunted as he jetted orc cum into Rapina's lively cunny. Rapina moaned. She felt so wonderfully stuffed with energy but she gluttonously drank up what Hluck had to offer nonetheless. At that moment, there was a clanging at the gate. It was Chontral Oagmak with a huge escort. The smiths hastened to let him in. "Chontral Melina, this is Drugarg, half ogre servant of T'zar, high chontral of the orcs. He brings a summons from T'zar. The High Chontral wishes to meet with the chontrals of Rageblood." Oagmak was usually impassive, but he seemed nervous. Rapina hoped that was not a bad sign. "Kahl Hluk, may we have your leave to go? The High Shaman's chont is great. He is especially well known for his curses. We must not offend him by withholding our presence." "Then you must go, Chontral. I will wait for you at the camp," Hluk said. "I do not know how long he will keep us, perhaps a long time. I have brought Chontral Melina's things and my own. If Kahl Rageblood leaves before we are able to come, we will catch up with you." Hluk nodded. He embraced Oagmak. May the lie of the bones be with you, Chontral. "And you Kahl," Oagmak said. Oagmak turned to Rapina, "We must pack your armor and weapons, it would be an offense to come into the abode of the High Chontral obviously prepared for war. Since our tribe is soon to leave, will the High Chontral forgive us our luggage?" Drugarg grunted and nodded in the affirmative, "High Chontral T'zar has a place you can leave it." Oagmak nodded, "Then get into some clothing quickly Chontral Melina. We must not keep High Chontral T'zar waiting." The journey to the high shaman's abode took some time. Whenever Drugarg got ahead or was preoccupied with the trail, Oagmak whispered to Rapina in the common tongue of humans. Rapina in turn whispered back. "The high shaman is very powerful. I fear him. He acts in unpredictable ways, but we must obey him. He is very powerful and his curses have a very long reach." "Is he an orc?" Rapina asked. "He is half orc, half dark elf like Tzangzar, but much older and darker," Oagmak said. "Does he have servitors?" Rapina asked. "Very few. He does not need them. Everyone is so afraid of his magic they obey," Chontral Oagmak said. "Does he have a woman?" Rapina asked. "He used to have one, a slave, a young Avengene noblewoman. The rumor is he cared about her, so he sacrificed her to gain some new spell or power. She would not have been sufficient as a sacrifice unless he cared about her a great deal," Chontral Oagmak said. "Eeuww, Uhoh," Rapina gulped. "If I had known before we came to Joodig, I..." Oagmak low voice trailed off. "Whatever happens, it is not your fault. You could not have known," Rapina said. The tunnels Drugarg led them through were long and winding. They crossed steamy water several times and the air grew warmer as they approached the lair of the high shaman. Soon they could not see farther than ten feet in front of them because of the steam that billowed through the caverns. Rapina wondered how Drugarg could find his way. Suddenly Drugarg stopped and pushed a stone slab into the wall. Once past the slab they reached an area where bones and beads hung from the walls and ceilings in strange constellations. "You can put your tings dere in dat alcove next to da chest Chontral Oagmak, and Chontral Melina, you can put your tings on top of dat chest," Drugarg rumbled. Once through a couple of partitions made of collages of bones and beads, they came to a small raised pool with a thick border. The odd half-orc that squatted near the pool waved as they approached. Rapina looked at him. He was beefier even than Tzangzar, but he was blacker as well, his hair, his nose, his skin, all of him. "High Shaman, T'zar pointed to a small cup sitting on the edge of the pool, "Chontral Oagmak." He pointed to another cup on the edge of the pool opposite Oagmak's cup, "Chontral Melina." Then he sat down in front of his cup. Welcome Chontrals. Let us drink, then we will speak. T'zar tossed the contents of his cup down his throat. Oagmak did the same. Rapina hesitated for a second and then followed suit. How is your chont coming, Oagmak? "Slow master. I can cast the bones, but I lack practical powers. Were it not for Chontral Melina, the Ragebloods would have lost our chief and other warriors as well to the wounds of Avengene." "Chontral Melina, you wear upon your neck the jool with no clasp that you cannot remove. It makes you slave to a master. I am the high shaman, sworn enemy of Avengene. I can help you; come with me," Chontral T'zar said. T'zar led the way through the steamy chambers and through a curtain of bone into a room that was eerily dry as though no steam could pass its hanging of strung teeth. There were many shelves cut into the living rock walls of the chamber and these were filled with vials and tiny boxes and baskets of herbs and reagents. T'zar took a small vial of black liquid and a brush of black bristles and motioned Rapina to him. "Hold your hair back, Chontral Melina. Rapina complied. High Shaman T'zar began moaning utterances as he painted the thick black liquid on her jeweled collar. He painted the entire thing except for two narrow bands, one below each of her ears. He then corked the bottle and took Rapina's hand. Follow me quickly. He ran, nearly pulling Rapina off her feet. Oagmak followed. He stood Rapina in the middle of a room across from a pool filled with a multitude of tiny colored stones or beads. He stopped and steadied her and then began droning an incantation while motioning Oagmak to stand behind Rapina. The black substance had dried and now began to crackle and fissure. "Oagmak grasp, pull and lift just as I do." T'zar grasped Rapina's collar in the front and pulled. Oagmak did the same in the rear. The bands on the collar below her ears that had not been coated by the dark liquid stretched like hot taffy. The orcs stretched and lifted the collar right off over her head. "Now let go." The high shaman told Oagmak and then quickly tossed the collar into the pool on the other side of the room as if it had just stung him. Rapina could see the collar return to its former shape in mid air, but when it hit the water, the water churned and bubbled so that she could no longer see it. "You see there is nothing to it. Now let us return to my chambers, we have much to speak about," High Shaman T'zar said. When they returned they found the cups had already been refilled. "Let us drink." Each chontral tossed down his or her cup. Rapina wrinkled her nose. The first cup had tasted something like the swill the Ragebloods had been drinking, but this second cup was distinctly bitter. The others did not seem to notice. "Now, Oagmak, your chont is worthless to save the warriors of Kahl Rageblood. Many do not respect you. They say your powers are weak and worthless. You are as a deep pool covered by strong ice. Your chont can be seen but not reached. You might practice for years and never see more than your reflection. The ice must be broken. Few living could ever give that priceless gift to you. Smear this ointment in your eyes. T'zar gave a small stone vial to Oagmak and then began droning incantations as Oagmak did as he was bidden. T'zar looked deep into Oagmak's dilated pupils, "The coming moments will be etched into your memory. You will never forget them for as long as you live. T'zar began casting another spell, droning and moving his hands in bizarre patterns. T'zar then took a small knife from his pocket and made a cut down each of his forearms. Blood welled from the cuts. "I have imbued you with the ability to cast a healing spell one time, one time. Use my power now and remember everything, everything, the shaping of the magic, the words, the inflections, everything! Nothing can ever be forgotten from this moment, nothing." Oagmak blinked and began casting, the incantations, the power it all seemed so simple, so unforgettable. At the end he placed his hands on T'zar's right arm and let the power flow. The cut shrank and disappeared. T'zar smiled for a moment, "Now repeat the spell from memory. Use your own power this time." "But I," Chontral Oagmak stammered. Tzar's eyes drilled into Oagmak's soul, "Do it, you will succeed." Oagmak remembered; how could he forget? He wove the words and gestures and shaped the power. The spell was etched perfectly into his mind and now he etched it yet again, this time his own chont sealed the wound on High Chontral T'zar's left arm. Welcome to the circle of power, Oagmak. Tzar gestured at Rapina, "One priceless gift for another." T'zar took Oagmak's nerveless hand and pressed several gems into it. "For Kahl Hluk," he said. Practice your spell at least once a day this month. You may go now Chontral Oagmak." Oagmak looked at Rapina. A tear rolled down his cheek. He would never forget this moment; he could never forget it. He had gained and lost so much. Oagmak walked out as if in a trance. When he reached the room with his gear Drugarg handed it to him and then took his hand and led him back to Jooldig. With glassy eyes, Rapina witnessed what had transpired without reaction. When T'zar lifted her and set her in the center of the pool she only stared at him as he arranged her body in a seated position. He took a chime and rattles from a nearby alcove and began to dance around her. A sound like the rushing of water filled her ears. She felt like a zombie, she could hardly think. She closed her eyes to concentrate but her thoughts were as sluggish as the black, frozen river she was seeing in her mind. Frozen? No sluggish, viscous. Her world was dark oranges and browns; the terrain was barren and rocky and there was no sky. Instead, a dark orange mist offered a small bit of light and vistas of barren stone lost in the distance. A woman came to her, but as she drew near Rapina knew she was not a woman. Her eyes were as flame red as her hair; she was translucent and non-corporieal. When she saw Rapina she stepped *into* her. "We meet again child, and this time you have no power to thwart me!" Vulvilea growled. The woman was in her mind; she was taking over. Instinctively Rapina struggled but she felt so sluggish. That voice, that voice in her mind. She knew it. Rapina gasped. It was the lust spirit. The lust spirit from the dreamstone agate she had, had as a child. Vulvilea's laugh was light yet sinister, oh yes, yes I can feel your power T'zar. The child is fighting; help me. Bring me forth. "Nooooo!" Rapina began to cry and shake. She looked around her at the desolate landscape for a moment. What could she do? Where was she? Vulvilea opened her living eyes, the same ones that had belonged to Rapina a moment ago and smiled. "You said the instant you appeared..." Tzar held a brazier of smoldering herbs under her nose and watched her breath deeply. "Ah, my head is clearing. Yes, yes spin an illusion of your Bellany in my mind... Yes I see. Vulvilea felt Rapina's breasts. The reserves were more than sufficient for the task T'zar required of her. Mmmm, yes this should be simple enough, first her hair, all of it... Rapina's hair began to curl then it lengthened and fell to waves as the color lightened from black, to deep brown to a ruddy auburn. Now the face as I promised... Her green eyes turned hazel and changed shape as the features of her face altered themselves. Now I must hear her voice in my mind, simple enough... the bones of her neck altered to resemble the girl in her mind as her vocal cords changed to produce the girl's voice. Vulvilea shifted the structure of her legs and arms, her abdomen and chest. Only minor adjustments were necessary since the two women had been approximately the same size. Are you sure you want me to change her butt and breasts? Rapina's are so much more delicious," Vulvilea said. The high shaman nodded. "Very well but it is better for energy reserves if the mass of flesh is more generous. Rapina has her reserves up here. Vulvilea squeezed her generous breasts as she changed the nipples to look like the woman's in the illusion. It needs to be a soft area that can expand, the butt, the belly or breasts what part of her would you like augmented. I will shrink the rest to your lady's proportions... "Gaah! The bitch is fighting me again. I cannot concentrate; I will have to do the rest later. You have her visage and more; the letter of my promise is fulfilled. I wear the face of Bellany Norwit. I will fulfill the spirit of our bargain when this headstrong bitch Rapina is sealed in her grave!" T'zar nodded and tugged Vulvilea's arm. They ran through several tapestries of bone. Then they entered a room with a pentacle etched into the stone floor and colored with gold leaf. For a moment, Rapina was lost in her tears, but she had never gained anything by crying. She had to pull herself together. She had to fight, and fight she did as futile as it seemed. She could hear Vulvilea talking to T'zar, "Seal me in my grave?" Rapina's sluggish mind grasped the phrase and then she realized. This was the land of the dead. This was where the lust spirit Vulvilea had gone when she died, all except the bit of her that she had stored in the dreamstone. Vulvilea's lord had been killed as had she, and they had gone to land of the dead... and its lord was... T'zar pushed Vulvilea down onto the pinnacle. "Your hands," he said closing manacles over her wrists and then moving to her ankles. Vulvilea glared at the shaman. "The spell involves grave pain, but you must not break the circle," He said as he manacled her ankles to the floor." Vulvilea gasped. Suddenly her eyes filled with fear, "Hurry!" She screamed. Mortaebius was the lord of the dead and this was his land! Rapina realized as she began a prayer of invocation known only to select priests and a single naughty deaconess: "Mortaebius, Sovereign of the dead, thy reign is threatened - in thine own kingdom. Hail Mortaebius Lord of the dead, I invoke thee!" "Thy dead escape the grave by a profane hand." Hail Mortaebius, spirit of mortomancy, I invoke thee!" "Thy power is usurped by an untamed spirit." Hail, Mortabius soul of the dead, I invoke thee!" "Thy divinity is profaned! Hail Mortaebius, God of the dead, I invoke thee!" Tzar retrieved a vial from a nearby shelf and poured the effervescent liquid it contained into the pinnacle's channel. He flicked a mystic spark from his fingertip and set the fluid ablaze. Pain joined fear as the flames began to sear her without visible damage. "Quickleeeee!" She wailed. T'zar raised an eyebrow and took up his rattles. He began to dance around the flaming pentacle, droning and squealing as he danced an intricate pattern... "Treacherous snake! Vulvilea writhed in pain. I know that ritual. You seek to banish me! Aaaiii! Vulvilea wailed as the flames burned her without apparent damage. "You have summoned me hither to change the girl's body, and now you seek to banish me? What!? Do you seek to replace my spirit with the spirit of Belany Norwit? Oh you soft fool! You seek to bring her back from the dead after you sacrificed her. Your love for her blinds you to your folly!" Rapina completed the prayer of invocation. She did not think about the fact that she should not have known it. There had been a locking cabinet in Guardian Rames' room. She was a patient and curious girl; she had checked it every night they made love after he fell asleep. One night she found it had been left open. One of his priestly books was inside. She had studied some of the prayers it held adding them to the boundless number she enjoyed impressing Guardian Thane with. Using the prayer of a full priest of The Shroud in Mortaebius' own domain might mean her death, but what choice did she have? She was nearly dead already and T'zar and Vulvilea were busy making it a permanent condition. Rapina was too busy invoking death to contemplate death, and then she felt...death, pervasive death, all-encompassing death. Death welled up in her from nowhere, from everywhere, lifeless and numb and final. Death was she. She was death. Death. T'zar danced and whirled and groaned his incantations. He had nearly completed the circle when he felt a presence. He did not let it break his concentration. The room began to rattle. An earthquake? No, it was only the bones, all the bones began to rattle in unison, the sound was deafening. High Shaman T'zar's concentration was not rattled with the bones. When Vulvilea's eyes turned to black holes, his concentration still did not waver. He was about to complete his dance, just another syllable. A bone claw separated itself from the convulsing mobile across the room, bolted forth and pierced his throat. The syllable was left unspoken, the rhythm broken. Vulvilea's chains rusted and turned to dust. Her stolen flesh began to putrefy and rot off her bones as she raised upright without having to first get to her knees. Her left hand touched his heart. He felt his power, his life and his soul wrenched from his rotting body. All he could do was scream, a long silent scream. ----+======+++======+---- [Rapina]050 Lady Doe As the shaman's last warding spell faded, the shadows beyond the pentacle stirred and disgorged a lithe skeleton. She scouted briefly and then Rames appeared followed by Thane dressed in his mortancer robes. "It was Mortaebius or one of his greatest minions, I feel sure of it. The presence, did you feel it Elizabetta?" Thane's deathly voice rasped through his robes. "The master or his hand," the skeleton nodded in the affirmative." "For us to have felt the presence while on the shadow plane and in Jooldig as they appear to call the orc town, it had to be powerful. It was fortunate that we picked this time to map the caverns and search for Rapina." "Rapina!" Rames ran to the pentacle and lifted the woman who lay there. Her left hand had been pushed against the ribcage in the midst of a pile of blackened bones. Uh! Rames nearly dropped the woman when he realized her dead hair was a dull, ruddy auburn. Her clothes fell to dust as he lifted her. He turned her over in his arms. Her face was not Rapina's. Much of her hair fell out and joined her clothing as he turned her, yet she was breathing, just barely breathing. "Unfortunately, it is not Rapina," Thane said. "She does appear to be just barely alive, however. Her skin is a mess, as though it had been sorely damaged and then partially restored." "But her size and her behind is a lot like Rapina's, without seeing her face I thought..." Rames choked back a tear. "Odd, she is wearing Rapina's mage light, but there is no question that she is a different young woman," Thane said. Hold her steady. I will have to bestow a portion of my life force on her or I believe she will die shortly. Thane droned arcane syllables and shaped his bestowal spell with mystic gestures. He placed one hand over the girl's eyes and another just below her ample breasts and poured a portion of his life force into her. He shook himself against the pain and then drank a healing potion to restore his life force. It was a testament to the seriousness of her wounds that she did not wake up. "Strange, it appears that the girl did the draining of the blackened skeleton. I do not understand why that would have caused nearly lethal damage to herself. Necromancy! Thane exclaimed as he looked around. "Hmm?" Rames asked. Thane examined the blackened skeleton. "I believe this was a living man or orc not long ago. Now it appears as if he were long dead and then some. The spell used to drain the life out of him must have been exceedingly powerful because I can still see the dweomer of necromancy clearly by using mage sight. There is a powerful residue on the girl's left palm as well. She looks awfully young to be a necromancer with such astonishing power. I'd say she's about Rapina's age, wouldn't you, Karmoz? Rames sniffed but pulled himself together, "Yes Mortancer Kroz." "And you are right; her rump is like Rapina's but the shape is not quite the same because their hips are shaped just a bit differently. She does appear to be approximately the same height and weight as Rapina and her build is similar. I believe we saw Rapina's pack on the way in, sitting on a trunk. Thane collected generous samples of the dust of the skeleton in several vials as though he felt there might be some use for it. After sweeping up most of the skeleton's dust, he inspected the pinnacle. "The chains appear to have rusted through; again I see the aura of necromancy. The room verily reeks with it." After several more minutes of investigation Thane packed up his samples. Let us see if that really was Rapina's gear. Bring the girl. This is no place for a human woman." Thane looked at his ring, "Astonishing." "What is it?" Rames asked. "Rapina's collar must be within a hundred yards or so of us to be faintly registering in spite of the fact that we are so deeply underground, come," Thane said. It took several false turns and some circuitous wending but at last Thane was led to the edge of a pool in a nearby room. There, sitting amongst a plethora of beads and shiny stones was Rapina's collar. "This pool is enchanted to drain away magic, but I believe the death of the lord of this place has diminished its power, just as the wards that once protected the lair from access via the shadow plane dissipated as we waited. Even so, had we not been so very close, the collar would never have registered. The signal is very weak while the collar is in the pool. Thane requisitioned a large jawbone from one of the nearby hangings and used it to fish the collar out of the pool. Once it was out of the water he touched his ring to it. "I think it is all right, but the fact that it is here may mean that the lord of this lair knew how to remove it without harm to its wearer or himself," Thane said. Rames shook his head. "I am sorry, Karmoz. My hopes were dashed as well. Let us investigate the pack we saw that looked like Rapina's," Thane said. A few minutes later the group had found the appropriate room and Rames was going through a trunk of items while Thane looked through a sack and the pack he had seen on top of it. Elizabetta stood guard. Thane held up a green silken bustier, "It bears the craftsmanship of the clothier we use in Argos. This is Rapina's pack. I recognize it and many of the items here." Rames held up a letter he had found in the trunk with several dresses and an assortment of women's finery, "It is from Bellany Norwit to her Mother, Lady Eleanor Norwit. The stationery bears a baronetial watermark. It is written about the start of a trip to a school in Bristol, but she never finished it. Are you familiar with Norwit? "Not particularly, but I believe Rapina is from that particular baronety of Avengene. Baronet Norwit keeps a small baronety for the Marquis in northwest Avengene. Being on the western border of Avengene's territory, he is one of Daelrath's neighbors, but his keep is too far south for the two of them to have had much regular interaction. "I think our giants severely cramped Norwit's style last year," Thane chuckled. "Yes, the ruined fort where we lost Rapina was in his territory," Rames said. Thane nodded. Rames held up an undergarment from the trunk. "There is no way that woman would fit in this garment. The bust is much too small." "You have a point, but being a teenager she may not have been fully developed when she arrived here. Then again I agree her bust is very like Rapina's but the nipples are different. Rapina's were more distracting, don't you think?" Thane asked. Rames nodded, "I've seen plenty of women in my day and very few of them are built like Rapina. This girl is though, but it's an odd coincidence." "Hmm, let me look at her aura. Thane shook his head. This woman's aura is more like Rapina's than it is like most of the normal women's I have seen, but it is certainly not exactly like Rapina's. I cannot make a positive identification, either her aura is strange but normal for her, or perhaps there is a subtle magic that pervades her aura everywhere. Rames carefully turned the girl over. "Is the magic uniform everywhere?" Thane looked carefully. "It is all so subtle and mixed with the powerful residue of the event that transpired at the pentacle. I would have to say that her aura is not quite the same over the curve of her rump as if less subtle magic had been used on it than had been used elsewhere. It could be I am only picking up residue of a recent spell that affected this woman's body, but why not so much on the rump? I do not know," Thane said. "Turn her over again." Rames complied and Thane studied her breasts. "Again here I believe I see somewhat more residue on her nipples than on the rest of her breasts and then more again on her chest and arms. I will admit that there are some elements of her aura very like Rapina's, and Rapina has an unusual aura, subtly different than any normal woman I have looked at. I am sure it is the inheritance she gained from the lust spirit that distinguishes her. I may be wrong that there are similarities in this woman; perhaps I am thinking wishfully in my interpretations. I am a necromancer, not an enchanter. My mage sight is not as sensitive as it could be. In any case this young woman is likely to wake up, but we cannot simply show our faces and ask her if she knows us. We may wish she were Rapina, but it is far more likely that she is Bellany Norwit," Thane said. Rames nodded gravely. "I suggest our only course of action is to drop her at a leech in the northern reaches of Norwit and observe her remotely. The likelihood is that she is Miss Norwit and will try to contact her parents immediately. If she does then we will know we were engaging in wishful thinking, if not then we shall see. Since she has no hair or nails I will take blood and a skin sample from one of her feet to aid in locating her. We will leave her off with her mundane possessions. We can pawn any valuables we do not recognize as Rapina's just as a couple of adventurers might if seeking remuneration for a rescue, but without wanting to face the possibility of a nobleman's wrath for being mistaken for the ones who kidnapped her in the first place. We will keep any items we know belonged to Rapina..." As he listened Rames was fiddling with the armor in the sack next to the pack Thane had been looking at. "Look at this, the banded armor breast cover nests down to expose the breast," Rames said. "For a nursing mother wearing armor?" Thane asked dubiously. Both began examining the armor more carefully. "The skirts lift quite convincingly," Thane observed. "Look at the way the tops of the leggings are cut," Rames said. Thane held up a pair of silk panties with a reinforced opening at the crotch. "This is not something the daughter of an Avengene baronet would wear," Thane said. "It looks newly made, or at least newly assembled," Rames said. "It looks like something Rapina might find useful, and it is her size. Perhaps she did better with the orcs than we had feared. In any case we will retain the armor. Norwit would dispose of it in an instant," Thane said. "I have never seen finer chain, and the alloy of the plate is not one I recognize. What of...? Rames moved the chest away from the wall. He reached down and held up Rapina's weapons belt with her rapier, main gauche and several pouches." Thane smiled. "I wondered where that might be. No doubt the new armor takes advantage of some metals found only deep underground. If this armor belonged to Rapina, then she must have been here recently. The state of her collar would tend to reinforce that hypothesis. Yet we made a thorough search of this maze from the shadow plane and came up with nothing more than what we have thus far investigated." Rames nodded as he began stuffing finery back into the chest. "We better hurry; whoever this young woman is, she cannot stay unconscious forever." "Agreed," Thane said. ----+======+++======+---- [Rapina]051 Leeched A warrior dressed in full plate and leather armor soiled with the grime of battle walked into the leech's clinic in the largest town in northern Norwit. He set an unconscious woman on a bench in the waiting room. "I am sorry, I am closing for the day," Leech Fraksen said. Rames dumped half the money from a small purse into his hand, transferred it to a one of his belt pouches and then tossed the half empty purse to the leech. The full helmet Rames wore further modified his disguised voice. "Hold, leech. There be a trunk full o' ladies finery I left at th' back door. Me an' me buddies, we foun' dis 'ere wench in an orc lair up north. She was the most well-spoken orc slave wench we ever did meet. She helped us getting around the lair some but she warn't much of a warrior. She got zapped by a orc shaman when we took da heart of deir hideaway. She gots some things that makes us figure she's noble born only we don't want some lord blamin' us for stealin' 'er, so we're leaving 'er with you. We pawned 'er jewels at jacinth's pawn shop to float 'er rescue and medical fees. If you find 'er daddy, maybe 'e'll grease yer palm too." "But you can't just leave her here," Leech Fraksen said. Rames grabbed the leech's lapels and lifted him off the floor. "Listen mister, the only thing I'm good at is killin', understand?" The leech nodded in terror. "Healers are supposed to be merciful, or at least greedy. You go about one or the other an' leave me ta killin.' It took me long enough ta haul the wench down this far South. I'm not waitin' around tryin' ta find 'er dad and see if 'e likes me, understand? Now you jus' do your duty as a leech and let me go." "Yes sir, I ah, of course. I'll take care of everything. Mercy is my middle name." The leech clutched the purse tightly. "Gud luck then." Rames set the man down, waved briefly and stalked out of the clinic. ---- It was nearly a day later when the doctor heard the first moans of pain and actual consciousness from the mystery woman's room. "Uhhuuuuhhh." The patient moaned. It seemed like she had been dead, or dreaming of a bleak rocky landscape and a dingy orange sky but she must have just been asleep for a very long time. Sometimes she seemed to escape the dingy netherworld to wander through the busy rooms of what appeared to be a small clinic, but it was impossibly crowded. It could not have been real unless there was a war on. Maybe she had dropped from exhaustion. Every muscle in her body ached, even quite a few she did not know she had. Her left arm felt dead. It throbbed with a dull pain that was at its very worse in the palm of her left hand. She was not sure which hurt more, her body or her head. They seemed to be having a contest to see which could torment her more. "Welcome back young lady. You are safe here. My name is Leech Fraksen, what is yours?" "It's, uh. I'm sorry?" The young woman mumbled as her almond-shaped hazel eyes fluttered open. She was in a clinic's sick room. It seemed somehow familiar to the clinic in her dreams, yet it was so empty. "Your name, girl, what's your name?" Leech Fraksen asked. The woman seemed to think for a while, "I... I don't know," She said. "Have you suffered a blow to the head?" Leech Fraksen asked. "My head hurts badly. Everywhere hurts badly. My left arm feels numb but it still hurts badly, especially the palm of my hand. My eyes seem okay, at least I can see." "I will have to examine you," Leech Fraksen said. "Okay, just don't expect me to move anything for you. Every single solitary muscle aches horribly." The vibrations from the impact of her large shield against a practice dumby echoed through her memory as she relived a fragment of her past. After the hours of martial drill her muscles ached. The touch of Leech Fraksen's examination broke her out of her reverie. Her skin was far too tender to enjoy the touch of a man. Leech Fraksen examined the lady. He could not help raising an eyebrow. She had a figure most of his female patients would have sold their souls for. On the other hand, she seemed to have some sort of bruising over her entire body except for a hand-sized area across her eyes and another hand-sized patch just under her breasts. The second patch had somehow spread upwards to encompass her breasts while still leaving the skin between them and elsewhere around the intact area as damaged as it was across the rest of her body. If he had to guess he would have to say that some sort of magical healing had been applied to the two unusually intact areas, but that it had been inadequate to do more than, at least temporarily, save the young lady's life. He might have thought she had been severely beaten, except that the bruising was too even and uniform to have been done with any sort of body part or instrument. In addition her hair had fallen out and was now growing back in. Currently it was no longer than the beard of a man with five o'clock shadow. "Do you remember the adventurer who brought you here?" Leech Fraksen asked. "There was an adventurer?" The lady asked. "I'll take that as a no. What about being abducted by orcs, do you remember that?" Leech Fraksen asked. The woman squinted. Her memory was full of dreams and nightmares from before she had come to. It seemed she must have been awake before now. The room she was in seemed familiar, but where were all the wounded stumping around in pain trying to get the doctor's attention? "Not dreams, I need memories," the woman thought to herself. A fragment of her past surfaced revealing a dozen lusty orcs standing around her in rapt attention as she lay in a puddle of their cum hungrily taking one after another. The woman blushed, "I am sorry, I cannot remember much, but I am pretty sure the orcs had me. Do you know who I am?" She asked. "No, but your manner of speech is educated. The adventurer that dropped you said he and his buddies had found you captive in an orc lair. He said the spell of an orc shaman had hit you. He left a trunk of things. If you like I can search them to see if there is any clue to your identity." Her memory wandered to reveal a shaman enspelling two familiar warriors. The Norseman she recognized as one of the bath-masters from her recent martial The warriors vibrated in place unable to move effectively because of the rattling spell of a troll shaman. Her memory held a troll shaman not an orc shaman? Other trolls attempted to carve her friends into meat. The scene shifted and she was caressing the mottled skin of the troll shaman. She took hold of his mighty erection and engulfed it between her legs. Uuuurrgh, the woman groaned in pain as the leech continued to examine her. "You can check the trunk if you want. I can only remember bits and pieces. They don't even make sense. It's like trying to remember a dream." "I will apply clove oil to your skin and give you something to help with the pain in your head. My wife will be in to help you with your toilette." Leech Fraksen said. "Thank you," The woman whispered wanly. --- The next day the Leech talked to the young woman after he finished with his other patients. "There is a man in town that draws. He offered to sketch your picture so we could pass it around at church and see if anyone knows you. My wife will also search the trunk full of belongings the adventurer dropped off for clues today. Would you like that?" Leech Fraksen asked. "I-I guess so. Why can I remember how to talk if I can't remember my own name?" the young woman asked. "Don't worry miss, I've heard of this sort of thing before, even seen it to one extent or another. Sometimes it happens with head injuries or in cases of enormous stress, shock or trauma. The mind seems to store knowing kinds of things and doing kinds of things in two different areas. You can forget what you know, and still know how to do what you did. Most people eventually recover. Sometimes doing something you did before you forgot yourself can help bring back the knowing associated with the doing," the leech said. "Thank you Leech Fraksen," the woman whispered. ----- Two days later it was Saturday, and Mark Reins came with his charcoals and parchment. Charlotte Fraksen finished helping the new patient clean up and then showed Reins in. "So you're the mystery girl. How are those mage wounds coming?" Reins asked. "Slowly mending. I am glad you are not painting. I don't think my skin is supposed to be yellow and blue," the young woman said. "You look beat up for sure, but I won't draw your bruises and I'll add some more hair. Artistic license is better than makeup." Reins smiled as he began to draw. I shouldn't be more than an hour," he said. A distant look came to the woman's eyes as a daydream or fragment of memory surfaced. A robed man spoke to her from the past, "Makeup is an art, with a bit of rouge and shading we make this dead woman look nearly alive." The woman snapped back to the present, "Er, It's okay, take your time. Now that I'm doing a little better I enjoy company," the woman said. "Your nostrils are moving, do you smell something?" Mark Reins asked. "It's just a tingle I get." She did not add that it seemed to happen primarily when men were present. It did not make a lot of sense to her yet. Reins worked steadily until he had completed a portrait. "There you are." The woman squinted and cocked her head, "Do I look like that?" She asked. "I've been told my portraits are very good," Reins said. "Oh, um, it's just that I have not seen myself since, since before the spell." The woman looked decidedly confused. Reins held up his index finger and spoke into the other room, "Mrs. Fraksen, do you have a mirror I could burrow. The patient wants to see if I have done well and cannot remember what she looks like." Mrs. Fraksen brought a mirror and the woman stared at herself for the longest time, tracing her fingers over her face and looking at her very short reddish auburn hair. Finally she looked at the portrait again. "It is a good likeness. Thank you, Mark. "I cannot believe the things I cannot remember." "Or some of the things I can," she added silently within her mind. "It's my pleasure, uh, well whatever your name might be. The Vindicator enjoins us to help those in need," Reins said. The woman squinted as she heard a voice from her fragmented past, "Your sins are grave for one so young." The voice was that of a priest wandering the halls of her memory. He had the eyes of madness." The woman blinked, "Uh of course," she mumbled. ----- A week later the clattering of hooves filled the lane outside the leech's office. The movement of armed men could be heard outside and several came in. A man clad in armor strode into her room. "Bellany! It is you!" The man looked to be about to pick her up and hug her but the leech put his arm before the man's chest. "Forgive me milord, the lady is bruised to the bone nearly everywhere on her body. Were you to hug her, the pain would be excruciating," Leech Fraksen cautioned. Bellany put her head in her hands, "I am so sorry. I am more than half-dead and everywhere bruised. I do not remember anyone. I cannot even remember my own name." You are Bellany Norwit, my daughter. You are in Norwit and I am Lord Darl Norwit the Baronet of Norwit under Marquis Avengene. We were sure you were dead. Leech Fraksen said an adventurer brought you in. He lifted the leech right off the floor and told him he was only good at killing and that the leech ought to handle the mercy for him," Norwit chuckled. The ache in her left palm against her forehead intensified and an eerie scene filled Ballany's mind. She was looking at the specter of herself standing in a barren yet somehow familiar landscape. "Daddy is a very busy man. I spent much more time with mother but he taught me chess one year on the eve of the vindicator's birth." Bellany looked up at Lord Norwit, "I am sorry I don't remember you. Are you sure I am your daughter?" She asked. The pain in Lord Norwit's eyes was evident, as if his daughter's words had stabbed him through the heart. I am sure you are my daughter. "You have grown some, and filled out quite a bit, but I know my own daughter's face. Early last fall you were making the journey to the Barony of Bristol to go to a prestigious boarding school. Your guards and coach were overcome by orcs. I feel so badly. Just a day after you left I received word that two of our forts had fallen to orcs and giants. Usually we would have known earlier, but this group of orcs was uncommonly efficient. Not a single scout escaped the night of the attacks. The orcs took your carriage. We found the remains of the guards. Things got so bad that year I had to request aid from Marquis Avengene several times. We nearly lost our keep a few weeks later. That orc tribe nearly broke us. Reinforcements from the south arrived just in time. Thankfully, Avengene later struck up an important alliance with Lord Heinrich Li'Yieraun and his mage, Nordula. With the aid of a mage for transportation and the power of the highest priests of the Vindicator, we put many of the giants into their graves. We had never seen so many giants working for the orcs before." Bellany nodded, "I wish I could remember you. I wish I could remember anything. Bellany hesitated in confusion, did you teach me chess?" Norwit brightened, "Yes, I did. I never spent as much time with you as I should have, but one winter on the eve of the vindicator's birthday when you were eight years old I did teach you chess. I am sorry your memory is damaged. Maybe it is better this way. You were taken by orcs. The Vindicator knows how they must have brutalized you. This way you have a fresh start." Bellany nodded gravely, "You mean I am probably not a virgin." "No, but you are alive and that is what counts, "You cannot imagine how much your mother and I worried" ------------ [Rapina]052 A Night As Dark As Sable The journey to her parents' home seemed a long one. She was carried to and deposited on the seat of the Norwit coach. Once underway she had felt every bump the wheels of the carriage had touched, and every one of them hurt her bruised body. The nebulous shooting pains and the blood she had seen in her urine in the days before the trip told her that some of her internal organs were damaged. She was very worried and wondered if she would ever fully recover. Nevertheless she tried to keep a tired eye on the countryside, and to listen to her mother, Eleanor Norwit trying to cheer her up. Since she remembered nothing about herself she found her mother's chatter educational. Her family consisted of her parents and two brothers, Charles and Darren. She was supposedly sixteen, although somehow she had thought she was older. Charles, her senior by one year, was at a finishing school in Bristol. Darren, her fourteen-year-old brother had a tutor and was helping her father and their steward run the estate. He was already being groomed for a career in management. Bellany found out that before her accident she had been active in the church of the vindicator, helping her mother with Sunday school and charity events. She was adept at needlepoint and backgammon. She read and wrote poetry, sang in the church choir and played the lyre and the lute. The only trouble was, she did not remember one wit of what her mother told her, yet both of her parents were absolutely certain that they recognized her as their daughter who had been abducted by orcs last year in the late summer. Lawns, hayfields and farms surrounded keep Norwit but there was a small walled town about a mile south named Emmitsville. Both the keep and the town had suffered extensive damage from the attacks of giants and orcs. Only reinforcements from the East had saved them from utter destruction. Keep Norwit had been largely repaired. It consisted of a tower keep on a small hill that was attached to a walled courtyard. Built into the front wall of the courtyard were a gatehouse and a sturdy, fortified manor house. A carriage house and various other outbuildings were built against the other walls of the courtyard. When at last she was carried to her bedroom within the manor house and put into her bed, Bellany slept like the dead waking up only on occasion because of internal pain and then drifting back to sleep. It was sometime the next day when she truly awakened. The heavy drapes had been drawn across her windows so that she could sleep but she could see there was light behind them. She looked around her room. She saw a fireplace containing a bed of glowing embers with a thick log atop them, a bookshelf, a desk, a bureau and a dressing table with a mirror. On the walls she saw a painting of an elaborate church of the vindicator and one of an old man and woman she did not know. There were three doors out of the room. The room did not look familiar. She wanted to walk around but after sitting up she decided she was just not up to it. There was a bell on the night table next to her bed. She picked it up and rang it. A woman perhaps ten years her senior entered the room. "Yes milady Bellany?" the maid said. Bellany blinked, "I am sorry, I really should remember you, but I cannot remember much since the spell, only bits and pieces that don't fit." "It's all right Miss Bellany, My name's Grace and I'm the chamber maid. Lady Eleanor said you were in bad shape, includin' your memory. Bellany nodded, "I really don't even know if I am Bellany Norwit. I don't recognize anyone. I don't even recognize myself when I look in the mirror. Lord and Lady Norwit say I look just like Bellany, only I've filled out some." Aye, you are Bellany aright. I would know your face anywhere, even as black and blue as it is, and even if I didn't, I'd recognize the sound of your voice. I was your maid since I was a girl. You were just a baby then," Grace said. "Thank you, it's comforting to know people remember me, even if I don't remember them, or even myself," Bellany said. "Lord Norwit said ye ran afowl of an orc sorcerer," Grace said. Bellany blinked as she remembered a mottled green creature without legs or arms affixed to a stand. It was troll, not an orc. "Er, yes, I think that's what happened, but I can't remember more than shreds that don't fit together." "Perhaps in time ye'll put the pieces together, Missy," Grace said. Bellany nodded, "I hope so. I wonder if you could tell me what time of day it is and when the next meal is coming?" Bellany asked. Grace smiled, "Well I guess ye're ready to face the day then. That door there is your closet, the next one is your privy and the one I came through goes into the manor. It's an hour or two before supper, but the cook has orders to send you something mild to eat whenever ye've a mind for it." Bellany nodded. "Yes, I would like something like a thin oatmeal gruel. I can't chew for long; it hurts too much. I mostly have to drink my meals." Bellany wrinkled her nose. Somehow I need to make it to the privy too, but it's difficult even for me to sit up..." After a meal and a brief visit from her parents, Bellany went back to sleep. She woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat after dreaming of bedding a hoard of pirates. It was amazing how lifelike they all were too. Each had his own personality, and their leader, Red Jack, had quite a sense of humor. Bellany rolled her eyes, "My dreams are too crazy, she whispered to herself. The fire gave off only a faint glow. Did she see shadows? Her left hand went to the chain on her neck that was not there. The palm tickled strangely in the brief moment it was facing the room. "Did I once have a light?" she questioned herself. She blinked as her errant memory showed her a dark scene. She was climbing a ladder. She approached an illuminated crystal that hung from a metal grating above her. Bellany cocked her head, "Magic?" she whispered. She found she could sit up as long as she could tolerate the pain of her bruises as she struggled to an upright position. Now that she had, had about a week and a half to recover, she was sure her head and chest were the least damaged parts of her body. Her right shoulder seemed fairly strong, but her left arm was still very hurt, especially the palm of her left hand. It felt dead yet ached at the same time. She guessed it was that ache that had awakened her. Her legs were too weak to hold her, yet she could not help but think they were not going to get stronger unless she used them. She wanted to light some candles and walk around, but she could not walk, it was too dark and she was too weak. She promised herself she would try to explore the room sometime tomorrow during daylight. The next day Bellany awakened sometime around noon. She felt a little stronger and even better yet after breakfast. Nevertheless, she knew her strength would not last for many hours and the shooting pains she sometimes suffered frightened her. After seeing her mother, she pretended to be having trouble staying awake. Her mother left her so that she could take a nap. Bellany really did doze for a few minutes, but then she woke up and turned her covers down, primarily with her right hand. She used the same hand to help swing her legs off the bed. The floor looked a long ways off even though it was less that a foot below her feet. Since the chair her mother always sat in was close to the bed, Bellany decided to make that her target. She turned over on her belly and slid off the bed until her feet touched the ground. Then she put as much weight on her legs as she could and fell backwards into the chair. She nearly missed and spilled herself on the floor but thanks to her right arm she managed to get the chair under her. She put her right hand between her legs and grasped the chair, then scooted along over the rugs to the desk. She searched it finding ink, quills and parchment. There was one drawer that contained some scrap paper with bits of poems and various other writings on it that had not turned out. Bellany looked at the writing. Something did not seem right. She took a quill and began to copy a poem fragment right next to the fragment itself. Her heart sank when she saw the writing was not the same. She began to cry but instinctively held down her volume. She felt so vulnerable. "Surely I could not remember how to write but forget how to write like I used to," Bellany thought to herself. I cannot be Bellany Norwit, but if I am not then who am I? "Think, think think," Bellany muttered to herself. "I have to think and act like, like, like what? I have to think like someone who is objective, cold, and rational. Bellany's mind swam as she remembered talking to a naked warrior in a great iron cauldron bath, "He doesn't know if I am a queen or a pawn and that interferes with his chess game... I assure you I am the white queen. I have to think like a chess master, the chess master, but who is that and what is a white queen?" "Never mind that, I need to think about now. I am sorely wounded. I need medical care and I need to put the pieces of my memory together. If I am not Bellany Norwit, I need to know who I really am and why I seem to be her. I need time, time to recover. First I need to know this is Bellany's writing and not the writing of one of her parents who gave her the parchment. The young woman searched through the drawer of scrap paper and did find some writing in different hands but none of it was hers. Finally she found an old note to "mother" signed Bellany in the same script as had been used to write the poem. "Until I know who I am, I am Bellany Norwit. I am going to stay here with servants, parents, food, medical attention and a warm bed," Bellany assured herself. She began copying poem fragments, matching her writing to the writing on the page until she could write Bellany script without looking at an example. Her fingertips hurt even though she held the quill lightly, but she did not care. Her survival was at stake. When she was done she carefully scooted her chair to the fire, and burned her practice sheets. She made sure every sheet of parchment was turned completely to ash and then she retraced her path to her bed, smoothing the rug with her feet as she scooted the chair along under her. She then managed to push herself up with her right hand and legs and flop onto the bed on her belly. Rolling the rest of the way onto the bed was an excruciating chore but she did it, and she got herself into bed. When she was done she was exhausted. She knew she would pay for her excursion, but she felt more secure knowing that even if she were somehow not Bellany, at least she could write like Bellany. Being badly bruised and too weak to walk, Bellany was confined to her bedroom. She hated the confinement even more than being in pain. Thankfully she had guests, her pensive mother came to see her often, and her more bearable father usually appeared once or twice a day when he was home. Her brother Darren came to see her when she first got home and occasionally he came to visit along with Lord Norwit in the mornings. She could also sometimes get her maid Grace to talk to her, and more importantly, Grace would get her books from her shelf and help her with mundane things she could not yet do by herself. Bellany had started on the top shelf and was very rapidly working her way down. She pretended to be browsing and skimming, but in truth she was reading and studying as best she could, given her condition. In spite of what would have seemed to others to be good progress, she felt so slow as if some essential vitality were missing from her mind. On a Monday morning a few days after Bellany's arrival at Nowit Manor, Eleanor Norwit, Bellany's mother, was there in her daughter's room when there came a knocking at the door. "Come in. Why Reverend Wright, it is so good to see you, and so considerate of you to come and see my poor Bellany," Eleanor Norwit said. Bellany sat up and looked at the Reverend. He was a somewhat homely narrow-shouldered man whose arrow- straight brown hair threatened to obscure his fanatical brown eyes. She felt a tingle that somehow was not quite right. Even though there was something off about the tingle the Reverend gave her, it seemed like something that she sorely missed, something that she had half forgotten but that nevertheless filled her mind with whispers that she could not quite hear. "Baby remember your modesty," Eleanor pushed Bellany's covers up, as though each of her fingers were a swarm of angry bees. "I am sorry Reverend Wright, Bellany's memory shattered from the stresses of her ordeal and the magic of an orc shaman. She does not seem to remember that others still can see. "Don't worry Lady Norwit, the nightgown you have her in is as modest as most summer dresses. You needn't concern yourself about impropriety. Its Bellany's soul we all have to worry about, her body will mend as best it can, Vindicator willing. I only wish I were senior enough in my role as a priest that I could offer some healing, but alas, I have not yet been so blessed," Reverend Wright said. Bellany somehow connected her mother's busy bee fingers with the Reverend's grasping after her soul. She could tell by the tone of Lady Eleanor's voice that her mother fawned over the young man's every word. Bellany decided she would have to pretend to like the Reverend, just as he was pretending to care about her. Bellany was not sure what it was he did care about, but she would find out. "Since you missed Sunday's sermon, I told Lady Norwit I would come deliver it to you personally," Reverend Wright said. "That is so kind of you Reverend, thank you." She could not say why, but there was something about the Reverend that bothered her. Her mother was a busy woman and she was called away in the middle of the sermon. She promised to return later. Bellany studied the man who spoke with such fanatical conviction, and decided he was here to make sure the vindicator still had her soul. Somehow she felt that if the vindicator had ever had it, he had lost it of late. She sat up a little and was rewarded by a tingle, and by some happenstance of habit she did something within her mind and body to pull on that tingle. She was rewarded by another tingle. The tingle definitely seemed to come from Reverend Wright. She had felt the same thing when she had told the artist Mark Reins that she enjoyed company. There was no doubt that these tingles tied in with the aching need she felt in her loins. Bellany smiled to herself and sat up more. She gazed raptly at the sermonizing Reverend pacing back and forth across the floor of her room and she pretended to be as stuck on the man as her mother while she played the tingle game with him to keep herself occupied. By the end of the sermon she could get Wright to send her a nose-tickling tingle at will. It gave her an odd sense of power even though she felt so beaten and powerless otherwise. When the sermon was done, the Reverend came to sit in the chair by her bed, the one usually occupied by her mother. He looked a little flushed. "Have you any questions on the sermon, young Lady Norwit?" Reverend Wright asked. Bellany wanted to tell the man what a phony he was. He pretended to care about her, but what he really cared about was harvesting her soul for the Vindicator. She found him intolerable, but she wanted him to rip her clothes off nevertheless. There was an aching hunger in her loins worse even than the throbbing dead pain in her left palm. She needed something he could give her so badly that it hurt. Bellany decided she would go along with his game and make him believe he was succeeding famously at stealing her soul for the Vindicator. Besides, if she resisted, she was sure he would probably just work all the harder and send her mother after her as well. Everyone seemed to pity her anyway; she decided to work from there. "How can the Vindicator save my soul, Reverend Wright? I am bruised to the bone from the spell of an orc shaman. I think the orcs must have taken my virginity from me, but I have no way of knowing for sure that they did. No man will ever have me after what they probably did to me, and I will become an old, dried-up spinster," Bellany sniffled. Reverend Wright wiped the tear from Bellany's face. Touching her made him ache with desire but he held firm. "Don't worry lady, your afflictions are severe but even while you were in the vile clutches of the orcs, the Vindicator made your body blossom like a rose. You were a girl when I saw you last; now you are a beautiful woman. If you could only see yourself now, you would know that even after all that has befallen you, the Vindicator will bring you a fine, forgiving husband. You must have faith," Reverend Wright said. "Do you really think so, Reverend Wright?" Bellany asked. "The reverend's eyes traced over the magnificent curve of her breasts. Your lines are exquisite, milady, your body is a work of art. Even after your ordeal, men will take notice of you. I promise," Reverend Wright said. Bellany's nipples rose to dent the fabric of her nightgown. Wright inhaled deeply. "I pray you are right Reverend, but I cannot go on wondering what the orcs did to me. I need someone to tell me if I am still a virgin, and if not whether I can ever be with a man after what they have done to me. "I cannot do such a thing for you, Bellany. The vindicator demands celibacy of his priests. It is a great sacrifice. The church has been cracking down on errant priests of late, and besides, everyone knows if any man anywhere in Norwit dared to touch you, your father would have him hanged," Reverend Wright said. "Please Reverend, I cannot trust anyone else to do it. My father will never know, I promise," Bellany said. The reverend hesitated for a long moment. I am sorry lady, you must look for yourself when you are well enough, and you may feel inside if you are in doubt of your capacity for a man. If there is no membrane barring the way into the depths of you then surely the orcs have broken your purity, but true purity is of the soul. Give yourself to the vindicator and he will restore the purity of your soul," Reverend Wright said. Bellany could see the reverend was too far-gone into the vindicator's fold to bring him between her folds. In a way she would have preferred if he were lecherous. At least she would still have been able to count him as a man. This reverend was not even a man. His soul had been stolen and he reveled in it. Bellany wondered at the finesse of the vindicator. How he must be envied by every silver-tongued demon that wished to possess the minds and souls of others. Who else could convince so many so easily that in giving up their souls they were found, but were they to leave their souls where nature had intended they would be lost? Bellany blinked as her fragmented memory parted with another gem. "I will give you potent magic, and more than mere dreams of lust. Simply open your mind to me, let me come into you and fill you with my power." It was the spirit of lust contained in a stone that had once tried to steal her soul for its own use talking. Had she succumbed? She wished she had other memories to add to it, but it was only a piece in a large, complex puzzle. Bellany suddenly realized she needed to react to the real world and not her memories, "Oh yes, yes I will give myself to the vindicator, Reverend. I must be filled with his purity." Bellany crossed her fingers behind her back and pretended to be swept up in the moment. "Let us pray..." Reverend Wright said. Bellany prayed like a fanatic, and when her mother came in sometime later, Bellany was still praying with the reverend. She pretended to have been enraptured by the reverend's words. She was not sure which she felt more strongly compelled to do, to roll off the bed laugh- screaming or to throw up. Somehow she managed to uphold her ruse until both of them had left, and then she hid under the covers and shook herself with a mixture of revulsion and silent laughter. She did not know why she had such a strong negative reaction to the vindicator, but there certainly was no denying it. ---- Bellany had many dreams as she slept through the next few nights and napped through parts of the days. At night she was still uneasy. It seemed as if she could sometimes sense the presence of others in her room. To make matters worse, so many of her dreams and flashbacks would have curled her mother's hair. She wondered if she could have actually done even half the things she had dreamed of or "remembered." Her memories troubled her but not nearly so much as her injuries. The fragmentary memories and the dreams she had were all wrong for the innocent daughter of Eleanor Norwit. Somehow they were tied to the lust spirit of the stone. Her past was an illusive sorcery. Yet if she was not Bellany Norwit as she suspected, then who was she? Perhaps she was a doppelganger with amnesia? Surely she must be loosing her mind. For the moment she decided to remain the orc-abused daughter of a baronet. ---- Several mornings after her "consultation" with the reverend her father came to visit. Oddly, she felt much more comfortable with him than with her mother. Her mother had expectations that she would return to being the Bellany she always had been, and that she would take the same pleasure at loosing her soul that her mother did. Her father, on the other hand, was a man who had somehow retained his soul in spite of the presence of the vindicator in his household. He was a practical military man and the former Bellany had spent much less time with him than with her mother. "Daddy, I don't understand one whit of it. Leech Fraksen said memories of doing would be more durable than memories of knowing. He said if I did the things I used to do I would pick them up rapidly if not instantly, and that they would help me remember things associated with them. Mother has told me what I used to enjoy. She was helping me to sing my formerly favorite hymns to the vindicator last night. I have been doing my best to humor her and the reverend, but just between you and I, religion just does not seem as practical as it once did. I guess mother thought I would be just fine after the reverend raised my spirits, but I'm not just fine. At least not the way she wants me to be just fine." Darl smiled, "Bellany, your mother and I understand you have been through a lot even if you don't remember it. Spending most of a year as the slave of the orcs cannot help but have changed you. We can tell that. The way that you talk and the way that you act, everything has changed. The little girl you were is gone and we realize we can never get her back. Your mother and I just want you to get better, and she thinks religion is going to heal you. I am not sure what to think. I just wish I had done a better job keeping the orcs off the roads." "I don't blame you, daddy. As a child your competent actions somehow managed to convince me that we were not living in a frontier battle zone. That means you must have been very effective at keeping the orcs at bay. Sooner or later they were bound to come up with something to throw you off your stride. At least you are hard at work keeping Norwit safe. Daddy, from the bits I remember I know I am a hundred times removed from being a virgin. Furthermore after nearly a year with the orcs I realize I cannot possibly be anything but barren if I did not bear a half-orc baby and I see no sign of a past pregnancy. I cannot be a pious vindicator wife. I may pretend to humor mother, but I can never be what she wants me to be. I need to learn to do something practical." "Mother had been training me to be a dutiful wife and pious indoctrinator of the young, but it is likely that I will never bear children. What I used to do had little practical value. Do you have any books other than those religious tracts and books of poems?" Bellany wrinkled her nose. I am so tired of the old me. It seems such a sham in the face of what has become of me." Baronet Norwit shook his head sadly, "Bellany you used to live for those things and now..." Bellany sighed, "Those things seem so worthless to me now, daddy. I guess there is nothing like being a slave of the enemy to make you realize you are at war. I will do what I can to spare mother's feelings, but I have no interest in most of the things I used to do. I would like to try to re-learn music, but I just can't get interested in poems and those prayers and hymns to the vindicator. I went through the books on my shelf and found nothing meatier than a book on needlepoint techniques. Do you have any practical books like men read?" "You mean books on how to kill orcs by the hundreds?" Baronet Norwit asked. "Maybe just by the tens or twenties," Bellany smiled. "I don't want to get too ambitious." Darl chuckled and shook his head, "I have plenty of books on warfare, but you used to avoid them like the plague. Not to mention your mother would not approve." "I was a frivolous child who had no idea where she was living or what might happen if a few giants got past the forts in the north and brought their orcish side- kicks with them. If you pick out some books for me, I would like to look through them and read any that seem interesting. You can tell mother it is just some histories where our side wins instead of what happened in my case. Tell her that I am weak, bored and have a vendetta against the orcs," Bellany said. "I would be happy to pick a few out for you, although I am sure I will hear about it from your mother," Lord Norwit said. "Mother is just going to have to accept the fact that her meek and faithful little girl was ruined by orcs. Since the legion of orcs never got me pregnant, she will have to forgive me if I think it is unlikely that I will ever be able to fill the role of childbearing wife and mother that she has chosen for me. I will have to find something else to do," Bellany said. Lord Norwit grimaced and nodded, "Most women enslaved by the orcs bear child after child of mixed blood from the repeated rapes." "Bellany nodded. I will never be able to please mother the way I used to. I have already accepted that," Bellany said. Lord Norwit sighed, "I am sure this will disturb your mother to no end, but I understand. I must get on with my day. I will have someone bring you some practical books," Lord Norwit said. Thank you daddy, Bellany gave Lord Norwit's hand a squeeze. During the following week Bellany slept a great deal while her body was mending, yet as she reached a certain point of wellness her aches, including the one in her loins awakened her at odd times and kept her sleep shallow. To make matters worse, when she did awaken at night any stir or shadow startled her as though ghosts beset her. Thankfully she was given crutches and began practicing with them to supplement the weakness of her legs. During her waking hours she read as much as she could. Her father began making it a point to visit her early every morning, and during that time she would talk to him about what she had read. "Good morning Bellany," Darl Norwit looked dubiously at the stack of volumes on Bellany's night table and the even larger stack on the floor just in front of it. I see Steward Brosk is taking his job a little too seriously," Norwit said. "He is now. He brought me three books on the first day. That was hardly enough. I had to complain bitterly." Bellany smiled. "It was?" The baronet looked a bit confused. "Yes, he underestimated what I can do when I have a mind to. Especially when I spend so much of my time trapped in bed. Besides, I can't say I like all the books. Some I just browse through," Bellany stretched the truth for her father's benefit. She had found she could read even complex material quite rapidly as long as the shooting pains she sometimes got did not distract her. Evidently her training in reading poems and prayers had not been a total waste even if she could not remember any of them save the ones she had read after her ordeal. "At first he brought me military histories. I read about a lot of battles, tactics and eeevil politics," Bellany rolled her eyes and grinned. Then I read this one Randal's Art of the Sword. It's a training manual. Unfortunately I am sure mom would as soon send me back to the orc tribe that snatched me as let me receive training at arms. Bellany grinned. Some of the exercises in it were interesting though. Today I am going to try the few I might be able to do in my condition. I am thinking I really will have to do something to get my strength back after being in bed for so long." "You're contemplating exercises?" Darl Norwit raised an eyebrow. Bellany nodded, "I'm sure mother would not approve, but why shouldn't I exercise? I have muscles don't I, and they have been weakened by my injuries. Maybe if I could have run faster I would have gotten away from the orcs. That reminds me, do we have horses daddy? It seems like we ought to." "Yes we do for the cavalrymen and couriers," Norwit said. "Did I used to ride them?" Bellany asked. "You and your mother would occasionally ride to church in your finery," Norwit said. "I was thinking maybe if I could have ridden a real horse real fast, I might have gotten away from the orcs," Bellany said. "You seem a little obsessed with orcs, daughter. I wish there were something that I could have done to have spared you the ordeal..." Norwit said. "I am not blaming you, daddy. I wish there were something I could have done to spare me that ordeal too. I think there were several things I could have done, and I aim to do them even if it means sneaking around behind mother's back. Daddy, what is the fastest horse you own?" "Starstruck, my black Andalusian stallion. He's not as large as many of the cavalry horses, but he is faster than any of them. Most of my cavalry horses are gelded because that makes them more manageable in battle, but Star is far to valuable to be gelded. His characteristics improve my local stock immeasurably. Bellany...I really wish I could have prevented the orcs from... Lord Norwit cleared his throat and started over. You must not think of riding right now. You need to put everything into recovering." Bellany nodded, reached out and squeezed her father's hand. "You work very hard to keep Norwit safe, daddy, to the point of sometimes having to neglect your own family. I approve. I am still very confused about what happened to me. My memory is just bits and pieces at best. I have to take the word of others on who I am. I don't even know I am really your daughter. The few bits I do remember would turn mother into a crying wreck so I am keeping them to myself. "Bellany I admire your strength but... this is not like you," Norwit said. "In my recent past the alternative to strength was death. Perhaps death is what really happened to Bellany at the hands of the orcs, daddy, and I am just some lost spirit possessing her body. In which case you should not tell me any grave secrets," Bellany cautioned. "I have to learn strength in spite of mother and the reverend. I know it is not going to be easy." Darl Norwit looked genuinely troubled at his daughter's words, yet there was a part of him that was proud of her, even if she was going against propriety to the nth degree. ----- Thane came into the abode's dining nook looking a bit preoccupied. He nodded a greeting to Rames, sat down and played with his oatmeal. "I am sorry Guardian Thane, I am just not as creative with food as Rapina was." "It's no matter Guardian Rames. I do not expect you to fill Rapina's shoes, anymore than I would expect you to dress in Argosian lingerie and tug on the strings of my lust while I was attempting to eat breakfast," Thane chuckled. I am preoccupied because I have been looking in on the Norwit girl periodically as I had promised. Perhaps more often than I had intended. You see, in spite of my not sleeping with Rapina, I find that I am feeling nearly as heartbroken as you seem to be. In a way I feel as though I cheated myself in not availing myself of what she so freely offered, but at the time I captured her I felt she needed a father figure more than yet another lover. Perhaps in providing her with a father figure, I inadvertently adopted her as my daughter and now I am feeling like a parent who has a missing child. It is hard to say. Even though I have so many more servitors than I once did. I feel... "Bereft?" Rames nodded, "I understand, but any more talk like that is going to break my heart. Is there any good news, anything?" "I did the ritual of communion with Mortaebius and was assured that Rapina is not among the dead, yet I cannot help but get the impression that our patron is being evasive about her whereabouts. I even tried locating her solely through non-clerical magical means using my mirror. One time I was sure I was on a roll, but when the image resolved it was Bellany Norwit. For lack of anything better to do I decided to look in on Ms Norwit more often." "As you know, Ms Norwit did not remember whom she was when she awakened, thus complicating what should have been a simple test. Evidently the trauma had made a mess of her memory. Nevertheless, I have neither the time nor the magical resources to watch her for lengthy periods. The best I can do is a spot check now and again. This morning I happened to look in on her and she was attempting to do exercises in spite of her rather grave condition. She is still very weak and after briefly attempting a few exercises, she had to give up. She is not bouncing back like Rapina would. I did see that she was reading a book on swordsmanship she had gleaned from her father's library, and the other books that had visible titles were military in nature, not the sort of thing I would expect a noblewoman to be reading. The problem is that if she were Rapina, her survival would depend on her seeming to be Bellany Norwit. If her memory were muddled she might lack the information to realize she ought to make an effort to give me a clue as to her identity." "Has she been chasing men? If that is Rapina and she is wounded, you know she'd need it in the worst way," Rames said. Thane smiled, "I suppose you are right, unfortunately until recently she has been unable to stray far from her bed. She now uses crutches to walk since her legs and her left arm are weak. Even had she wanted to chase men, there would have been no opportunity. Now that she can get around on crutches I shall try to look in on her at various times of day to see if she does have any interactions with males. The keep is garrisoned, but I imagine Lord Norwit would string up any man who was a big enough fool to bed his daughter." Rames shook his head, "That would be a desperate situation for Rapina." Thane nodded, "You realize this is a long shot. I should not even be doing it, yet since I have promised myself I would practice skrying every chance I got, there is no reason why I cannot make Ms Norwit one of the people I apply my practice sessions to." Rames nodded, "Until we get a better lead, it's at least something." "Agreed, and even if I am merely spinning my wheels, it feels good to be doing something." ----------- It felt good to be able to move around even if it was on crutches and even if it sometimes caused her to hurt inside. She could not yet negotiate stairs but had promised herself she would learn. Bellany started trying to sleep after dinner each night, but got up at the crack of dawn every morning because that was the time her father could always visit her when he was home, and she actually enjoyed seeing him. She did not have to put on near as much of an act for him as she did for her mother. She was rapidly devouring the books he and Steward Brosk brought her and she enjoyed talking some of them over with her father whose military knowledge was appreciable, and who had the kind of experience that went beyond mere book knowledge. Even though she was determined to get her strength back, she still spent a lot of time in bed and most of that time she spent reading. Currently she was in one of the back bedrooms of the manor looking out the window into the courtyard. Down below she could see her father and lieutenant Florin reviewing the garrison troops. Soon they would start weapons practice. Three days ago she had discovered weapons practice when lieutenant Florin and sergeant Lime had demonstrated some swordsmanship with live steel. Bellany had heard and had watched from a window at the end of the corridor that led past her bedroom. Since then she had not missed a day. She sat and ate part of her breakfast as she raptly watched two score of men practice at arms. Her finger had a habit of straying under her nightgown as she watched. She did not know why, but her female parts seemed to be better off than much of the rest of her as if some natural flow pattern of energy had diverted a certain amount of the power that had restored the patch just under her breasts down to her loins. One of the younger men's practice swords clattered off his opponent's low parry and then thwacked his opponent's instep. Bellany's mouth opened as she daydreamed a scene... "First off we're gonna do is run ye 'round Red Jack's Isle ta see how tough ye are... I don't cater ta wimps here, and' this trainin' is oriented ta survival o' the fittest. She could see them running too, a whole bunch of boys. She got the impression they were pirates. She remembered bedding the same pirates from her dream. She shook her head. She came up with the wildest stories in her head. Obviously she had dreamed that one up before her accident for the same reason her finger was nudging her nub. "Honestly, I really must have needed a man when I dreamed those stories up. I suppose it was because daddy would hang anyone who touched me. Pirate ships, sweating recruits... Bellany saw the image of a naked Norsemen, blonde and bigger than life. She grinned, "and pike-bearing Norsemen. Being a noblewoman is like being in a golden cage in a way. I wonder if I was always this crazy for men?" ------ The next day began with her mother's voice. Bellany! Wake up dear we have to get you ready for church! Bellany groaned quietly. She had to wake up and put on her vindicator act for the benefit of her mother. She managed it and in not too long a time her mother and Grace had her cleaned up. They had made some alterations to one of her Sunday dresses and she now fit into it nicely. She smiled at sergeant Lime and the tingles he provoked as he and her father bore her down stairs on a litter. She ate breakfast with her family in the great hall and then was rushed off to a carriage. The church was in Emittsville. It was fairly large and looked to have been built within the last ten years. There were lots of people there and everyone was eager to greet her father the baron who evidently did not make it to church very often. After greeting her parents they invariably welcomed Bellany home. From many of the men she felt the same nose and spine tickling feeling as she had from the reverend and sergeant Lime. She suddenly realized she was feeling their lust and it made her ache for a lover all the more. After addressing the baron, Reverend Wright greeted her with open arms, and told her how glad he was to see her back in church and then he rushed off to the pulpit to start the service. "Before I start the service I would like you all to welcome Lady Bellany Norwit back into the fold," Wright announced. "We are sure she had many harrowing experiences after being taken slave by the orcs. As she courageously helped the adventurers who rescued her in their battle against the most powerful of the orcs, she was hit by the foul sorcery of an orc shaman and nearly killed. Yet the vindicator sometimes tips his hand to the faithful. Her rescuers won the day and took her to the office of Leech Fraksen in the north. In spite of horrible damage that goes right through her mortal body miraculously, her eyes were unharmed and she pulled through. It has taken her some time but she is walking again with the aid of crutches. Her memory was severely traumatized so don't take offense if she does not remember you. She did not remember her own name when she was found and has taken the word of friends and family as to whom she is. Please welcome Lady Bellany Norwit. The parishioners applauded and several of them called out greetings and welcomes. Bellany waved and smiled to everyone, and then settled in to listen to the reverend as he sermonized. She tried not to let her mouth twitch too much during the sermon. There was something that deeply bothered her about the vindicator, but she could not say why she felt that way. After the service she stood near the back of the church and most of the congregation greeted her and gave their condolences that she had, had to endure so much. "I am so glad you could be with us this morning, Baron Norwit as we welcomed Bellany back into the fold", Reverend Wright said. "How is your memory coming, Bellany, does the church look familiar? You and your mother have spent many fine hours here." "Thank you reverend," Bellany said. "So far I really don't remember anything other than a few horrors at the hands of the orcs. It seems like I should remember the church, but nothing I have seen yet has rung a bell. I have no idea where anything is." "We will just have to remedy that Lady Bellany. I enjoy showing off this house of the vindicator. Let me offer you my arm and I'll give you the royal tour," Reverend Wright said. "Thank you reverend," Bellany curtsied and grimaced as her legs protested. "It looks like you could use the arms of two men," Reverend Wright said. "Allow me," Lord Norwit said. "Thank you daddy," Bellany said. The baronet and the reverend took Bellany through the church but nothing looked familiar at first. There was a hall on one side of the sanctuary where the arts and crafts of various children and parishioners were displayed. One of the displays was different and read, "Enemies of the Church and the Marquisate. Bellany stopped suddenly as she saw one of the faces. "Ho there," reverend Wright said as Bellany brought him to an abrupt stop. Do you recognize this display?" Bellany blinked and tried to seem a lot less disturbed than she was, "I don't think so, but I wanted to look at the faces since I've just come back from being among the orcs and outlaws. Do you know anything about these people?" "Some of them I have heard stories about," the reverend said. Bellany pointed, "Who is this Captain Red Jack?" "He's the foulest reaver on the Augustana River. For years he and his pirates terrorized river settlements. A couple of years ago he and his men were nearly destroyed out east on Grand Lake by a man as foul as them, a sorcerer-priest of Mortaebius..." Reverend Wright said. Bellany's vision swam as her memory conjured a torch- lit scene. "Blood an' bones!" hollered the now-familiar muscle-bound Norseman from Bellany's dreams. This time he was fighting walking skeletons and ordering pirates to stand firm. "Hold yer ground an' drive these bags a bones back t' the hells they came from!" The reverend was continuing his story, "...Red Jack was captured and sent to Turnmoor to be executed, but some of his allies and a few crewmen who had fled the battle with the sorcerer helped the captain escape at the last minute. Lord Heinrich Li Yeiraun hunted Red Jack down and would have defeated him but for the intervention of a powerful necromancer that had allied himself with the filthy pirate." "Is the vindicator at war with this death god Mortaebius? The one whose priest captured Red Jack?" Bellany asked. "Well in a matter of speaking yes. The forces of the vindicator drove the evil minions of Mortaebius out of the Marquisate and burned his temples. We will fight those ghouls any way we can!" the reverend exclaimed. The reverend cleared his throat, "Anyway the necromancer also raided the magic from Lord Li'Yieraun's keep and angered Nordula, Lord Li'Yieraun's mage." In her mind, an old grizzled sergeant opened the heavy door into a large keep before her. "Oi, who's the' girl?" asked the sergeant. "Got her down at Agnes.' Damn pretty, isn't she?" the officer whose arm she held replied. Reverend Wright continued,"...Knowing the vindicator despised necromancers and the death god they worship, Lord Li'Yieraun and Lord Avengene realized they had something in common and struck up a fine alliance. Li 'Yeiraun's mage and our priests were responsible for vanquishing the threat of the giants. Our ally Lord Li 'Yeiraun has also sent us stonemasons from the south to help with our massive rebuilding effort. Why I believe your father has one employed at keep Norwit. I am sure that one day we will catch up with Red Jack again. These other posters are of some of Jack's wicked crewmen, Arzeal, Drake, Brackston, Pike, and Skitch are officers, and some of these others are just notable pillagers." Bellany put her hand over her mouth as she stared at the poster depicting Pike. She had seen that very same Norseman in her daydreams. Somehow it was all real; her dreams were memories. "Goodness that one looks like he could tear a woman limb from limb," Bellany said to disguise her reaction. "I have no doubt he could; yet these pirates are as cowardly as they are dangerous. When the heat of the law became too great for Captain Red Jack down along the Augustana River southwest of Avengene, he fled east along the river and then he sailed north through the elven forest and began terrorizing the eastern provinces of Avengene. He was most active last year when the forces of the vindicator had their hands full with the giants and orcs, but even now he is a notorious raider. We don't know when he will strike next," the reverend said gravely. Bellany nodded and began to walk forward, and then near the end of the display she stopped dead again and gaped at a poster. Wanted for the murder of Reverend Evangeline Avengene, Brianna Barter, a.k.a. Valkura. "She looks younger than me, how was it she killed an Avengene? Aren't they battle trained like daddy?" "She was a fell sorceress from a line of witches, and even at the age of fifteen, she bewitched Evangeline and killed him in his bed." Bellany leveled a dubious glare at the Reverend that just about withered him where he stood, "And he was found fully clothed in an unsoiled bed, no doubt." Reverend Wright cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Baron Daelrath and I have shared a few heated words over that one. In any case, daughter, we owe our allegiance to Marquis Avengene. You are to keep your opinion about that young woman to yourself," Lord Norwit said. "Yes father," Bellany said in a stilted tone. "I think it is time we got Bellany home. Thank you for your hospitality Reverend, and my apologies for my daughter's scornful look. I hope you understand she is sensitive about matters surrounding the violation of young women," Baronet Norwit said. Reverend Wright cleared his throat once again, "Of course milord; I understand." ----- That afternoon Bellany had a lute lesson with an old musician who played at the church. She kept the conversation away from religion and tried to learn as much about music as she could in spite of the aches in her sides and her left palm. Her debility made her feel as though her mind were smothered in molasses. Her teacher thought she was "re-learning" her music at an appreciable pace, but she felt like a snail. Something was missing. She felt like such a lump and shooting pains often ruined her best musical efforts in mid song. Her mind somehow lacked the energy to really shine and her loins were driving her batty. That evening in bed Bellany stared up at the ceiling. She had been avoiding thinking about the rogue's gallery at the church and the things she had remembered. It was down right scary. Brianna Barter had seemed so familiar, even the name haunted her. Had she known her? Bellany could not imagine where she might have met her. After all Bellany was only with the orcs for under a year. Perhaps the orcs had taken Brianna too. She was no doubt on the run from the law. Even if Brianna had been a fellow slave, that did not explain Bellany knowing Red Jack and his officers. Bellany groaned. It was the same frustrating game. She had more pieces to the puzzle but they still did not exactly fit together, or did they? If the sorcerer of Mortaebius had nearly destroyed Red Jack she had originally been with Red Jack's men, then what had happened to her when the sorcerer caught her? The boys in her memory had seemed like pirate recruits. Maybe she had been a recruit with them. It just did not make sense. Norwit was too far away from the river for pirates to have taken her. That and she did not know how long ago Red Jack's men had run into the sorcerer. It seemed that if Jack were raiding while the giants were destroying forts in Avengene then he would have been raiding Avengene during the year's period she was a slave to the orcs. She would have to have known Jack after his run-in with the sorcerer, but her memories seemed to say that she had known him before that. Yet that would have to have been before she was abducted by orcs last summer. Bellany's head spun. "Wait a minute," Her writing had been all wrong when she had arrived. She might not be Bellany Norwit, yet she looked like Bellany Norwit and there was and is a holy war between the vindicator and Mortaebius." Bellany decided to forget herself for a moment and just try to put her dreams or memories together to see if they made sense in and of themselves. Her last memories seemed to start with the dreamstone priest and end with Red Jack, why? She could not say. Then after Jack what little bits she remembered did not yet fit together at all. If the priest of Mortaebius had captured her with Jack, and Jack was sent to Turnmoor for execution, what had become of her? Perhaps she was in league with the sorcerer. Had he put her in touch with some secret order working for the church of Mortaebius against the Church of the vindicator? Maybe he had made a deal with Jack. That would explain why Jack started raiding Avengene. In addition it would explain why the things of the vindicator sat so badly with her. There was an internal logic to it, but it did not fit with Bellany's life and abduction by the orcs. The two made sense apart but not together. It was as if she were two people. Or maybe she really was a demoness who had possessed the body of Bellany Norwit. She did not really feel like a demoness, but something about her past and her present just did not jibe. She decided she would just have to wait until she could remember more pieces. For the moment she would try to recuperate. Tomorrow she wanted to learn to take the stairs on her crutches. Ideally she wanted to do away with the crutches entirely but she was so weak and the damage seemed to have affected more than her skin, muscles and bone. Her internal organs were not right; although the spot near her heart seemed to be healed. Perhaps her heart and lungs were doing better than the rest of her, just as her eyes were. The next day Bellany learned to negotiate stairs. She rose very early and dressed in a pastel pink dress, one of the few outfits that had been altered to fit her. Most of her clothes were too tight in the bust. Her first flight of stairs consisted of three steps that lead from the second floor of the manor house where her room was to the curtain wall around the courtyard. She took them slowly without mishap and then She hobbled along on the wall to a good spot and sat between two of the crenellations. Bellany waved down to the men assembled for weapons practice, "Hi Daddy, hello Sergeant Lime and everyone." The men looked up at her. A herd of tiny tingles tickled her nose and ran down her spine. "It can't be normal for a woman to feel lust like this," Bellany thought to herself. Nevertheless she noted which of the young men seemed to have the strongest reaction. By Wednesday Bellany was getting around pretty well considering her debility. It hurt to move, sometimes things inside her protested, but she found being caged in her room intolerable. She felt a need in her loins that was so strong it was driving her right out of her mind. Her skin was clearing but at a snail's pace. It was still noticeably yellow and blue. Her legs had become only a little stronger but since her left arm was a wreck, the added strength was very welcome. Her left crutch had never done much more than steady her. Her left arm was so damaged she was glad it was not a delicate internal organ. The palm of her left hand still ached dully as if it were dead. At first she explored the manor, then she began to explore the courtyard and some of the side buildings, the brewhouse, the bakehouse, the granary, the smithy, the servant's quarters and the barracks. The reactions she got from the men were always the same. They noticed her even in her current condition, but none of them was willing to touch her with a ten-foot pole. Her daddy had schooled them well. --------------- This morning she had decided to take a look at the stables or the carriage house as her mother called it. The pungent aroma of horse manure assaulted her nostrils as she entered. She recognized one of the young men from the garrison hard at work mucking out a stall. "Dorety!" "The young man bowed. Good morning Lady Bellany." It seemed after he greeted her that he could only look at her feet. Bellany bent at the waist and lowered herself down her right crutch a ways. From there she looked up into the young man's face and waved with one of her fingers. Dorety grinned, "Uh, Lady Bellany, what are ye doing down there?" "My feet seemed to be the only thing you'd look at," Bellany said. "Er because I'm just a commoner, ma'am," Dorety said. "Before my abduction, was I just a little high and haughty?" Bellany asked. "Er yes ma'am; in a manner of speakin' you were," Dorety affirmed. "I suppose I had a chaste reputation to uphold, moral purity, a lady's pride and all that," Bellany said. "Yes ma'am," Dorety said. "It's a shame Dorety but let's be realistic, after a hundred orcs bed a woman by force -chaste reputation gone, moral purity gone, pride gone. It is just Bellany now. Currently people only call me 'Lady' because my father is a baronet. Before they had more traditional reasons," Bellany said. "Ya took a fall," Dorety said. "I took a hard fall. Now I'm Lady Damaged Goods. I doubt any nobleman would seriously consider marrying me. It would be hard on a nobleman's pride. For one thing he would think he was getting seconds after an orc tribe, and for another his prospects of getting children if a year of orcs produced none would be nill. Lady Damaged Goods is barren and has been ill used." Bellany remained bent over and realized she was not going to be able to haul herself up her crutch as easily as she had lowered herself down. Dorety finished the stall he was working on and opened the next one. She wanted to turn to look at Dorety in his new location but instead she merely craned her neck and looked behind her. The black stallion in the newly opened stall trumpeted, lipped the air, surged forward and nipped Bellany on the rump. "Ouch!" Bellany squealed as she looked up behind her and inadvertently gazed between the forelegs of the prancing stallion. She caught a glimpse of his underside and the enormous hose that was drawing down from its sheath in front of a pair of peach-sized balls. Heat radiated through her. She had been working to see a man's equipment for several days and had gotten absolutely nowhere. What she had just seen was ponderously male. It made her grimace as if one of her pains had struck her. Dorety was trying his darndest not to laugh as he turned the horse and half dragged him into the finished stall. Bellany stared open-mouthed at the animal, fully realizing the significance of the phrase, "Hung like a stallion." Dorety got the horse in the stall but he started laughing and try as he might he could not stop. "I am so sorry HAHAHUHAA, Lady Belan-HEHEHAHAAW, Starstruck isn't usually a biter. He only nips mares in season before he studs'em. HEHEHE I think he's in love! HAAWHAHAHEHE!" "First orcs, and now the only male that appreciates me nips and clops around on hooves?" Bellany groaned in exasperation. "I've taken a fall alright. Just then one of her pains did hit her and she doubled over all the more and screwed up her face against it." Sorry Lady, I should have known bein' bent over was going to hurt you. Dorety got his laughter under control. "Here, let me help you up." "Thank you," Bellany said, pulling on the young man's lust as he pulled her up. "Oooooo, you are a pretty Lady Belly; you really grew up nice while ye were a slave girl. I'd be havin' about the same reaction as Starstruck right now except bein' a man I'm smart enough ta know Lord Norwit would flay me alive even if he caught me with his new un-chaste-ed daughter. You may know your reputation is shot, but I get the feeling your daddy thinks people ought not to count the orcs again' you since it wasn't yer fault for bein' abducted. I guess that means ye've got the worst of both worlds." "Oh wonderful! It just isn't fair," Bellany said. "Sometimes things in life just go from bad to worse, Lady," Dorety agreed. Bellany swore like a pirate in her mind as she crossed Dorety off her short list. She was going to go mad for sure and Dorety had been the last man on her short list. She had already tried the mason from Li'Yeiraun, and several boys from the garrison. There had to be some fool man at Keep Norwit who would bed her now and think about the consequences later. Bellany grimaced. Was it really fair for her to seduce someone because she was crazy for a man? She was not thinking straight. All she would get was a moment's pleasure, but any man she bedded was risking his life. Yet, something was gnawing at her memory, something very important. Bellany wandered to the bake house. Chef Dower was a middle-aged man who, along with his wife, saw to all of the cooking at Keep Norwit. He liked bread making best. "Good day, Chef Dower. Did I ever cook before the accident?" Bellany asked. "Mmmph, no milady, methinks you spent most of yer time at the church with your mother," Dower said. "I'm bored. Would you teach me how you make bread today?" Bellany asked. "Aye, if ya like. If ye've got the stamina fer it, by the end of the day perhaps ye'll be learned enough to make the muffins for yer family's dinner. Wash up yer hands and then we'll get to work," Dower said. Bellany passed the day learning to make bread and trying not to think about where she was going to find a man to bed her. At dinner that night, Chef Dower made an announcement. "Lady Bellany was bored today and wanted to learn to make bread. I taught her a few things and she picked 'em right up. By the end of the day she was doing so well, she made tonight's muffins. I dare say I figured I'd have to walk her through it, but I hardly needed to do a thing." The chef bowed and the maids served dinner. "I had no idea you were interested in cooking, Bellany. I thought you felt domestic chores were beneath you." Lady Norwit said. Bellany shrugged. "There is art to cooking, I think, mother. Besides, I don't imagine I'll be marrying a baron anymore. I might need to have some skills." Eleanor Norwit looked distinctly uncomfortable for a moment, "I suppose it would not hurt. You did very well, honey. The muffins are delicious." "Thank you mother," Bellany said. Bellany was confined to Keep Norwit by her infirmity. Her life felt so dreary. She was learning music, and she spent some of her afternoons baking bread with Chef Dower. Sometimes her innards kept her twitching around in pain for hours and she did nothing at all. Lately those times seemed to come more often. She had tried to stop attempting to seduce men but had not entirely succeeded, but where she had failed, they had passed with flying colors. None of them would get close. The men her father kept at his keep were loyal to him to a fault. The ache between her legs was consuming, and no matter how many times she teased herself off with her fingers, her need did not diminish one whit. If anything, it grew stronger. Early Saturday night she tossed uncomfortably in bed more asleep than awake. She flashed back into the dreamy realm of memory. She was dancing in front of a hoard of pirates. Lust was buzzing through her body like a swarm of crazed honeybees. Her need was so deep, so powerful. The pirates had aroused her to a fever pitch. Bellany woke with a start. Her body was bathed in sweat. The screaming need she felt in her loins was driving her mad. ---- In a large master suite nearby, Lord Darl Norwit settled into bed next to his wife, "Did you talk to Grace today Eleanor?" "Yes, dear. It was not good news. Bellany has more blood in her urine. It's been getting worse ever since church or before. I guess getting her back to what had been her joy has been a disaster. She remembered nothing and snapped at the reverend. I know being cooped up in her bedroom drives her to distraction, but it seems all this moving around has raised her spirits but damaged her within. I am not sure what to do, Darl," Eleanor said. Darl shook his head, "I am sorry Bellany snapped at the reverend. The case of Brianna Barter must have struck a chord after the abuse she suffered at the hands of the orcs. I feel badly about it since arguing with Baron Dealrath on the subject. The Avengenes have forbidden me to deviate from their official story, but there were... rumors about Evangeline's excesses for years before he died. I should have done more to follow up on them. What little checking I did do never turned up any hard evidence. There was a young woman named Brenda Dawes who went to the trouble of seeking an audience, but she was crippled in a bad fall shortly before she was to appear and had to cancel her appointment." "Darl, don't agonize over Evangeline. Whatever his sins, he has passed on and your allegiance is to Avengene. It is no wonder Bellany snapped at Reverend Wright after her ordeal with the orcs and what with her health slipping so dangerously. Grace said she was passing an alarming amount of blood in her urine. I am very worried," Eleanor said. "It is horrible she is getting worse after she has already suffered so much, but we knew it might happen. Leech Fraksen feared extensive internal damage. The strange thing is that sergeant Lime came to me with a disturbing report about Bellany today. I could hardly believe it, but after questioning the men involved and recalling the way I saw her look at the men as she watched them practice, I realized it must be true," Darl Norwit said. "What is it, dear?" Eleanor inquired pensively. "Bellany has been trying to get friendly with some of my men," Darl said. "No," Eleanor replied incredulously. Baronet Norwit nodded, "I board my finest here at the keep, and they watch out for each other. They all had essentially the same concern. They would not have said anything but they were worried that Bellany has become a beautiful young woman and that eventually one of them might slip up. The others would feel as though they were partially responsible for the man's hanging if they had failed to report the earlier incidents to their superiors. Thankfully she has done nothing particularly untoward, just leading remarks and meaningful expressions, but when five men come forward, I am inclined to believe them." "I cannot believe that as bruised as she is she can still be overcome with desire." Eleanor shook her head. Yet, five of your handpicked men would not lie about such a thing. I do not know what the orcs did to her, but perhaps she associates sex with survival." Darl cleared his throat. "Yes I could see how that might happen since she was a slave of the orcs." "Darl, whether it upsets her or not, I think you had better take her crutches. She needs to recover, and this mischief she has been getting into has not been helping," Eleanor said. Darl nodded, "I will pick them up when I visit her in the morning." "Thank you dear. I think it's the right thing to do," Eleanor said. ------ Bellany's sleep was fitful; pain did not allow her to rest easy, but the pain was not as bad as the hunger. She was positively ravenous for a man and she did not understand why but her lust was even harder to sleep with than the pain. While Bellany looked at the ceiling, her fingers strayed to caress her breasts and to stroke her mound. She was afraid. Whether she liked to admit it or not, she was well aware of the increasing blood in her urine and of the fact that her kidneys seemed to be falling apart. The increasing pain she felt from some of her internal organs scared her. She might not be able to move much longer. If a kidney failed, she could be bedridden again or much, much worse. She plunged a finger into her heat. She needed a man but her mobility was limited to the keep and might be even more severely limited by her condition if she got any worse. When she realized she was fantasizing about hoards of pirates, she stopped herself. "I really should have been romanticizing about the perfect man to bed and eventually marry," she though. A second finger slid into her heat to join the first. Bellany looked out the window at the blackness. "He would be sweet, strong, and somehow noble but not necessarily in the sense of being an aristocrat, and he'd have to be fearless or foolhardy, or down right dim-witted since daddy would hang him high if he bedded me. There I go ruining my perfect man," Bellany groaned. She slipped a third finger in to join the other two. Maybe he could be a high priest or a mage or someone with healing powers. I am sure there are plenty mages and high priests running around Keep Norwit at this hour," Bellany sighed. She had hit rock bottom. She was dieing and there was not a soul out there who could help her. Maybe she could not prevent her death, but she needed a man, an orc or even the troll shaman from her dreams. She was so desperate she did not even care. She had to have someone before she died or she would take her own life to stop the wicked gnawing of her lust. The darkness of the heavens mirrored her fait. A cool breath of wind shifted Bellany's hair. She smiled, her eyes wet with tears. The clouds had shifted and between them shown a single bright star. A fourth finger deliberately stretched her wider. She realized who her man must be. She would go to him tonight or die trying. The story continues in [Rapina]053 Summertime copyright 2001-2002 by Rapina The Chronicles of Rapina, Chapters 49-52 Land Of Desolation Back to contents page Back to the Jooldig, page [Rapina]049 Land of Desolation [Rapina]050 Lady Doe [Rapina]051 Leeched [Rapina]052 A Night As Dark As Sable [Rapina]049 Land of Desolation Rapina screamed and shuddered as a massive orgasm shook her sweat-soaked body. She bucked her hips forward and backward gasping with pleasure as she came. She only barely managed to touch the minds of the smiths at the last second, sending a calming message at last. The bucking of the two half orcs began to slow to a saner pace. Rapina panted for breath as the two smiths continued to plunge in and out of her, their glistening pink spiral-ribbed cocks teasing each other through the flesh between her vagina and rectum. Her ride had been a bit wilder than she had expected. On her first orgasm she had lost control and touched their minds with her own lust. Her second orgasm had carried a message of alliance, and after that her orgasms had become so intense she had done nothing but buck and squeal with pleasure. "Hruuuuuuunk!" Daing grunted long and hard as he spent yet again into the raging lusts of Chontral Melina. His orgasm was long and intense. Her charmed cunt squeezed him rhythmically as if to milk the very last drop of lust from his loins. He could not remember ever having creamed a woman so many times without a rest. Droplets of sweat shook from Tangzar's fatigued body as he slapped his loins against Melina's generous jiggling butt. "Rreeeeeeehruunk!" He squealed as he jetted hot cum deep into her clutching rump. Her caress along the sides of Daing's face was light with mystic precision as she pushed her firm cheeks against Tzangzar arching her back to receive the power of his spend. "Clang... ... ... Clang... ... ...Clang." Tzangzar collapsed on Melina's back and perked his ears. The clanging on the gate was spaced as though the one knocking had grown fatigued with repeated effort and had decided to clang the gate regularly but much less frequently. Tzangzar groaned and pried himself off Melina's back. His knees were a little weak causing him to squat as he walked before he recovered himself. Tzangzar peered out the door and across the courtyard. "Chontral Oagmak is waiting. There is someone with him carrying a suit of spiked plate. Perhaps it must be resized." Each day for the next three days, Rapina was called back to the smiths for fitting and to heat their hardened rods in the forge of her loins. The party among the Ragebloods seemed to go in cycles of lust, drunkenness and insensibility. Rapina ate and drank modestly, washed frequently and slaked the lusts of her kahlorcs interminably. Her grasp of orcish improved from use and exposure to words and phrases she had not yet learned. During the times most of the orcs slept, Chontral Oagmak gave her additional instruction in orcish. He felt it was in the best interest of the tribe for her to speak their language well. By the morning of the fourth day, Kahl Rageblood had drunk up the last of the alcoholic swill they had bought in town. The hung-over orcs began to pack up their belongings at a pace that was too slow even to be called leisurely. By afternoon it was obvious camp would not be struck until the following morning. In the afternoon, Krahl Hluk and two bodyguards took Rapina to the armorers to retrieve the finished armor. When they arrived, Hluk began to don his re-sized armor. Tzangzar showed Rapina how to put on and adjust her foundation garments and armor pieces. Since orcs never stopped growing, provisions had been made on most pieces of her armor for some adjustment in the fit. Tzangzar had worked with a seamstress in town to produce Rapina's foundation garments. These included dark elven style panties in a variety of colors that featured reinforced openings at their crotches, and matching bustiers that cupped the lower compass of her breasts leaving her nipples accessible to roving lips. Next there was a tunic and leggings of silk padding, notable for the areas they did not cover. The armor itself consisted of several parts. The helmet was a smooth deep dwarven plate helm with an open face from the forehead down and a nose guard. It had flared edges at the bottom to keep the rain from running down her neck and an optional dark-elven chain veil that could go across her face from just below her eyes. The breastplate was a combination of a half breastplate of deep dwarven metal that covered her upper chest and back and dark-elven chainmail that covered her down to her hips. Her breasts were contained in expandable banded cups that were built into the breastplate. A band of plate went over her hips. Both her banded skirts and her chainmail leggings attached to it. The dark-elven chain leggings were cut high towards her hips almost to the point of being a strap at the hip and low towards her inner thighs so that they left her crotch and butt uncovered beneath her banded skirts. "It is beautiful," Rapina beamed hugging each of the smiths in turn once she had donned her new armor. Both of them looked very proud. "It is only fitting that a Chontral's armor should fit the quality of her chont," Tzangzar bowed. "Chont schmont. You shared the full measure of your robust charms, juicy cunt and thucking prowess with us, Melina; It was our pleasure to share the full measure of our smithing prowess with you," Daing beamed. "There is some extra mail and plate in the sack there for repairs. We want you to be protected, but we know you will not always be near us when your armor is damaged." "Thank you mastersmith Daing, and thank you mastersmith Tzangzar. I will think of you whenever my armor protects me and each time I put it on or take it off, or thuck while wearing it." Daing grinned like a pirate, "Hup, don't thank us yet, the armor has not yet undergone its final testing. Kahl Rageblood has given us the opportunity to see that your armor has properly grown more robust to contain your swollen udds, but the final test of your armor has not yet been done." Rapina blushed; the long party had left her breasts flushed and swollen firmer and larger than ever before. Hluk finished donning his re-sized spiked plate chief's armor. He moved around in it, and then nodded to the smiths in satisfaction. "Kahl Hluk, since you are Kahl of Rageblood, would you like to be the first to test Chontral Melina's new armor? It is designed so she can practice her chont while she and her partner are both armored." Hluk grinned, "I will test it." "My friend Tzangzar suggested this refinement. Daing pinched together two small studs spaced far apart just above Rapina's right breast. He pulled down the bands over her breast so that they nested together to cup only the lower part of her breast, exposing the lion's share of it to the air. "Clever," Khal Hluk smiled. He kissed Rapina's swollen right nipple then undid the cup over her left breast and slid the bands down to land a kiss on her second nipple. "Most cunning." Rapina grinned. Hluck removed his codpiece, lifted Rapina up, and laid her over a large anvil standing in the courtyard. He lifted her banded skirt and watched the contour reverse to hug her body. "Good, even an orc with skirts in front would be able to thuck Chontral Melina." Hluck entered Rapina and began to pump. His spikes slid harmlessly across her banded skirt. "It is working." Hluk quickened his pace and thrust more forcefully. "Fine... armor... Uuuhhrrruuuuk!" Hluk grunted as he jetted orc cum into Rapina's lively cunny. Rapina moaned. She felt so wonderfully stuffed with energy but she gluttonously drank up what Hluck had to offer nonetheless. At that moment, there was a clanging at the gate. It was Chontral Oagmak with a huge escort. The smiths hastened to let him in. "Chontral Melina, this is Drugarg, half ogre servant of T'zar, high chontral of the orcs. He brings a summons from T'zar. The High Chontral wishes to meet with the chontrals of Rageblood." Oagmak was usually impassive, but he seemed nervous. Rapina hoped that was not a bad sign. "Kahl Hluk, may we have your leave to go? The High Shaman's chont is great. He is especially well known for his curses. We must not offend him by withholding our presence." "Then you must go, Chontral. I will wait for you at the camp," Hluk said. "I do not know how long he will keep us, perhaps a long time. I have brought Chontral Melina's things and my own. If Kahl Rageblood leaves before we are able to come, we will catch up with you." Hluk nodded. He embraced Oagmak. May the lie of the bones be with you, Chontral. "And you Kahl," Oagmak said. Oagmak turned to Rapina, "We must pack your armor and weapons, it would be an offense to come into the abode of the High Chontral obviously prepared for war. Since our tribe is soon to leave, will the High Chontral forgive us our luggage?" Drugarg grunted and nodded in the affirmative, "High Chontral T'zar has a place you can leave it." Oagmak nodded, "Then get into some clothing quickly Chontral Melina. We must not keep High Chontral T'zar waiting." The journey to the high shaman's abode took some time. Whenever Drugarg got ahead or was preoccupied with the trail, Oagmak whispered to Rapina in the common tongue of humans. Rapina in turn whispered back. "The high shaman is very powerful. I fear him. He acts in unpredictable ways, but we must obey him. He is very powerful and his curses have a very long reach." "Is he an orc?" Rapina asked. "He is half orc, half dark elf like Tzangzar, but much older and darker," Oagmak said. "Does he have servitors?" Rapina asked. "Very few. He does not need them. Everyone is so afraid of his magic they obey," Chontral Oagmak said. "Does he have a woman?" Rapina asked. "He used to have one, a slave, a young Avengene noblewoman. The rumor is he cared about her, so he sacrificed her to gain some new spell or power. She would not have been sufficient as a sacrifice unless he cared about her a great deal," Chontral Oagmak said. "Eeuww, Uhoh," Rapina gulped. "If I had known before we came to Joodig, I..." Oagmak low voice trailed off. "Whatever happens, it is not your fault. You could not have known," Rapina said. The tunnels Drugarg led them through were long and winding. They crossed steamy water several times and the air grew warmer as they approached the lair of the high shaman. Soon they could not see farther than ten feet in front of them because of the steam that billowed through the caverns. Rapina wondered how Drugarg could find his way. Suddenly Drugarg stopped and pushed a stone slab into the wall. Once past the slab they reached an area where bones and beads hung from the walls and ceilings in strange constellations. "You can put your tings dere in dat alcove next to da chest Chontral Oagmak, and Chontral Melina, you can put your tings on top of dat chest," Drugarg rumbled. Once through a couple of partitions made of collages of bones and beads, they came to a small raised pool with a thick border. The odd half-orc that squatted near the pool waved as they approached. Rapina looked at him. He was beefier even than Tzangzar, but he was blacker as well, his hair, his nose, his skin, all of him. "High Shaman, T'zar pointed to a small cup sitting on the edge of the pool, "Chontral Oagmak." He pointed to another cup on the edge of the pool opposite Oagmak's cup, "Chontral Melina." Then he sat down in front of his cup. Welcome Chontrals. Let us drink, then we will speak. T'zar tossed the contents of his cup down his throat. Oagmak did the same. Rapina hesitated for a second and then followed suit. How is your chont coming, Oagmak? "Slow master. I can cast the bones, but I lack practical powers. Were it not for Chontral Melina, the Ragebloods would have lost our chief and other warriors as well to the wounds of Avengene." "Chontral Melina, you wear upon your neck the jool with no clasp that you cannot remove. It makes you slave to a master. I am the high shaman, sworn enemy of Avengene. I can help you; come with me," Chontral T'zar said. T'zar led the way through the steamy chambers and through a curtain of bone into a room that was eerily dry as though no steam could pass its hanging of strung teeth. There were many shelves cut into the living rock walls of the chamber and these were filled with vials and tiny boxes and baskets of herbs and reagents. T'zar took a small vial of black liquid and a brush of black bristles and motioned Rapina to him. "Hold your hair back, Chontral Melina. Rapina complied. High Shaman T'zar began moaning utterances as he painted the thick black liquid on her jeweled collar. He painted the entire thing except for two narrow bands, one below each of her ears. He then corked the bottle and took Rapina's hand. Follow me quickly. He ran, nearly pulling Rapina off her feet. Oagmak followed. He stood Rapina in the middle of a room across from a pool filled with a multitude of tiny colored stones or beads. He stopped and steadied her and then began droning an incantation while motioning Oagmak to stand behind Rapina. The black substance had dried and now began to crackle and fissure. "Oagmak grasp, pull and lift just as I do." T'zar grasped Rapina's collar in the front and pulled. Oagmak did the same in the rear. The bands on the collar below her ears that had not been coated by the dark liquid stretched like hot taffy. The orcs stretched and lifted the collar right off over her head. "Now let go." The high shaman told Oagmak and then quickly tossed the collar into the pool on the other side of the room as if it had just stung him. Rapina could see the collar return to its former shape in mid air, but when it hit the water, the water churned and bubbled so that she could no longer see it. "You see there is nothing to it. Now let us return to my chambers, we have much to speak about," High Shaman T'zar said. When they returned they found the cups had already been refilled. "Let us drink." Each chontral tossed down his or her cup. Rapina wrinkled her nose. The first cup had tasted something like the swill the Ragebloods had been drinking, but this second cup was distinctly bitter. The others did not seem to notice. "Now, Oagmak, your chont is worthless to save the warriors of Kahl Rageblood. Many do not respect you. They say your powers are weak and worthless. You are as a deep pool covered by strong ice. Your chont can be seen but not reached. You might practice for years and never see more than your reflection. The ice must be broken. Few living could ever give that priceless gift to you. Smear this ointment in your eyes. T'zar gave a small stone vial to Oagmak and then began droning incantations as Oagmak did as he was bidden. T'zar looked deep into Oagmak's dilated pupils, "The coming moments will be etched into your memory. You will never forget them for as long as you live. T'zar began casting another spell, droning and moving his hands in bizarre patterns. T'zar then took a small knife from his pocket and made a cut down each of his forearms. Blood welled from the cuts. "I have imbued you with the ability to cast a healing spell one time, one time. Use my power now and remember everything, everything, the shaping of the magic, the words, the inflections, everything! Nothing can ever be forgotten from this moment, nothing." Oagmak blinked and began casting, the incantations, the power it all seemed so simple, so unforgettable. At the end he placed his hands on T'zar's right arm and let the power flow. The cut shrank and disappeared. T'zar smiled for a moment, "Now repeat the spell from memory. Use your own power this time." "But I," Chontral Oagmak stammered. Tzar's eyes drilled into Oagmak's soul, "Do it, you will succeed." Oagmak remembered; how could he forget? He wove the words and gestures and shaped the power. The spell was etched perfectly into his mind and now he etched it yet again, this time his own chont sealed the wound on High Chontral T'zar's left arm. Welcome to the circle of power, Oagmak. Tzar gestured at Rapina, "One priceless gift for another." T'zar took Oagmak's nerveless hand and pressed several gems into it. "For Kahl Hluk," he said. Practice your spell at least once a day this month. You may go now Chontral Oagmak." Oagmak looked at Rapina. A tear rolled down his cheek. He would never forget this moment; he could never forget it. He had gained and lost so much. Oagmak walked out as if in a trance. When he reached the room with his gear Drugarg handed it to him and then took his hand and led him back to Jooldig. With glassy eyes, Rapina witnessed what had transpired without reaction. When T'zar lifted her and set her in the center of the pool she only stared at him as he arranged her body in a seated position. He took a chime and rattles from a nearby alcove and began to dance around her. A sound like the rushing of water filled her ears. She felt like a zombie, she could hardly think. She closed her eyes to concentrate but her thoughts were as sluggish as the black, frozen river she was seeing in her mind. Frozen? No sluggish, viscous. Her world was dark oranges and browns; the terrain was barren and rocky and there was no sky. Instead, a dark orange mist offered a small bit of light and vistas of barren stone lost in the distance. A woman came to her, but as she drew near Rapina knew she was not a woman. Her eyes were as flame red as her hair; she was translucent and non-corporieal. When she saw Rapina she stepped *into* her. "We meet again child, and this time you have no power to thwart me!" Vulvilea growled. The woman was in her mind; she was taking over. Instinctively Rapina struggled but she felt so sluggish. That voice, that voice in her mind. She knew it. Rapina gasped. It was the lust spirit. The lust spirit from the dreamstone agate she had, had as a child. Vulvilea's laugh was light yet sinister, oh yes, yes I can feel your power T'zar. The child is fighting; help me. Bring me forth. "Nooooo!" Rapina began to cry and shake. She looked around her at the desolate landscape for a moment. What could she do? Where was she? Vulvilea opened her living eyes, the same ones that had belonged to Rapina a moment ago and smiled. "You said the instant you appeared..." Tzar held a brazier of smoldering herbs under her nose and watched her breath deeply. "Ah, my head is clearing. Yes, yes spin an illusion of your Bellany in my mind... Yes I see. Vulvilea felt Rapina's breasts. The reserves were more than sufficient for the task T'zar required of her. Mmmm, yes this should be simple enough, first her hair, all of it... Rapina's hair began to curl then it lengthened and fell to waves as the color lightened from black, to deep brown to a ruddy auburn. Now the face as I promised... Her green eyes turned hazel and changed shape as the features of her face altered themselves. Now I must hear her voice in my mind, simple enough... the bones of her neck altered to resemble the girl in her mind as her vocal cords changed to produce the girl's voice. Vulvilea shifted the structure of her legs and arms, her abdomen and chest. Only minor adjustments were necessary since the two women had been approximately the same size. Are you sure you want me to change her butt and breasts? Rapina's are so much more delicious," Vulvilea said. The high shaman nodded. "Very well but it is better for energy reserves if the mass of flesh is more generous. Rapina has her reserves up here. Vulvilea squeezed her generous breasts as she changed the nipples to look like the woman's in the illusion. It needs to be a soft area that can expand, the butt, the belly or breasts what part of her would you like augmented. I will shrink the rest to your lady's proportions... "Gaah! The bitch is fighting me again. I cannot concentrate; I will have to do the rest later. You have her visage and more; the letter of my promise is fulfilled. I wear the face of Bellany Norwit. I will fulfill the spirit of our bargain when this headstrong bitch Rapina is sealed in her grave!" T'zar nodded and tugged Vulvilea's arm. They ran through several tapestries of bone. Then they entered a room with a pentacle etched into the stone floor and colored with gold leaf. For a moment, Rapina was lost in her tears, but she had never gained anything by crying. She had to pull herself together. She had to fight, and fight she did as futile as it seemed. She could hear Vulvilea talking to T'zar, "Seal me in my grave?" Rapina's sluggish mind grasped the phrase and then she realized. This was the land of the dead. This was where the lust spirit Vulvilea had gone when she died, all except the bit of her that she had stored in the dreamstone. Vulvilea's lord had been killed as had she, and they had gone to land of the dead... and its lord was... T'zar pushed Vulvilea down onto the pinnacle. "Your hands," he said closing manacles over her wrists and then moving to her ankles. Vulvilea glared at the shaman. "The spell involves grave pain, but you must not break the circle," He said as he manacled her ankles to the floor." Vulvilea gasped. Suddenly her eyes filled with fear, "Hurry!" She screamed. Mortaebius was the lord of the dead and this was his land! Rapina realized as she began a prayer of invocation known only to select priests and a single naughty deaconess: "Mortaebius, Sovereign of the dead, thy reign is threatened - in thine own kingdom. Hail Mortaebius Lord of the dead, I invoke thee!" "Thy dead escape the grave by a profane hand." Hail Mortaebius, spirit of mortomancy, I invoke thee!" "Thy power is usurped by an untamed spirit." Hail, Mortabius soul of the dead, I invoke thee!" "Thy divinity is profaned! Hail Mortaebius, God of the dead, I invoke thee!" Tzar retrieved a vial from a nearby shelf and poured the effervescent liquid it contained into the pinnacle's channel. He flicked a mystic spark from his fingertip and set the fluid ablaze. Pain joined fear as the flames began to sear her without visible damage. "Quickleeeee!" She wailed. T'zar raised an eyebrow and took up his rattles. He began to dance around the flaming pentacle, droning and squealing as he danced an intricate pattern... "Treacherous snake! Vulvilea writhed in pain. I know that ritual. You seek to banish me! Aaaiii! Vulvilea wailed as the flames burned her without apparent damage. "You have summoned me hither to change the girl's body, and now you seek to banish me? What!? Do you seek to replace my spirit with the spirit of Belany Norwit? Oh you soft fool! You seek to bring her back from the dead after you sacrificed her. Your love for her blinds you to your folly!" Rapina completed the prayer of invocation. She did not think about the fact that she should not have known it. There had been a locking cabinet in Guardian Rames' room. She was a patient and curious girl; she had checked it every night they made love after he fell asleep. One night she found it had been left open. One of his priestly books was inside. She had studied some of the prayers it held adding them to the boundless number she enjoyed impressing Guardian Thane with. Using the prayer of a full priest of The Shroud in Mortaebius' own domain might mean her death, but what choice did she have? She was nearly dead already and T'zar and Vulvilea were busy making it a permanent condition. Rapina was too busy invoking death to contemplate death, and then she felt...death, pervasive death, all-encompassing death. Death welled up in her from nowhere, from everywhere, lifeless and numb and final. Death was she. She was death. Death. T'zar danced and whirled and groaned his incantations. He had nearly completed the circle when he felt a presence. He did not let it break his concentration. The room began to rattle. An earthquake? No, it was only the bones, all the bones began to rattle in unison, the sound was deafening. High Shaman T'zar's concentration was not rattled with the bones. When Vulvilea's eyes turned to black holes, his concentration still did not waver. He was about to complete his dance, just another syllable. A bone claw separated itself from the convulsing mobile across the room, bolted forth and pierced his throat. The syllable was left unspoken, the rhythm broken. Vulvilea's chains rusted and turned to dust. Her stolen flesh began to putrefy and rot off her bones as she raised upright without having to first get to her knees. Her left hand touched his heart. He felt his power, his life and his soul wrenched from his rotting body. All he could do was scream, a long silent scream. ----+======+++======+---- [Rapina]050 Lady Doe As the shaman's last warding spell faded, the shadows beyond the pentacle stirred and disgorged a lithe skeleton. She scouted briefly and then Rames appeared followed by Thane dressed in his mortancer robes. "It was Mortaebius or one of his greatest minions, I feel sure of it. The presence, did you feel it Elizabetta?" Thane's deathly voice rasped through his robes. "The master or his hand," the skeleton nodded in the affirmative." "For us to have felt the presence while on the shadow plane and in Jooldig as they appear to call the orc town, it had to be powerful. It was fortunate that we picked this time to map the caverns and search for Rapina." "Rapina!" Rames ran to the pentacle and lifted the woman who lay there. Her left hand had been pushed against the ribcage in the midst of a pile of blackened bones. Uh! Rames nearly dropped the woman when he realized her dead hair was a dull, ruddy auburn. Her clothes fell to dust as he lifted her. He turned her over in his arms. Her face was not Rapina's. Much of her hair fell out and joined her clothing as he turned her, yet she was breathing, just barely breathing. "Unfortunately, it is not Rapina," Thane said. "She does appear to be just barely alive, however. Her skin is a mess, as though it had been sorely damaged and then partially restored." "But her size and her behind is a lot like Rapina's, without seeing her face I thought..." Rames choked back a tear. "Odd, she is wearing Rapina's mage light, but there is no question that she is a different young woman," Thane said. Hold her steady. I will have to bestow a portion of my life force on her or I believe she will die shortly. Thane droned arcane syllables and shaped his bestowal spell with mystic gestures. He placed one hand over the girl's eyes and another just below her ample breasts and poured a portion of his life force into her. He shook himself against the pain and then drank a healing potion to restore his life force. It was a testament to the seriousness of her wounds that she did not wake up. "Strange, it appears that the girl did the draining of the blackened skeleton. I do not understand why that would have caused nearly lethal damage to herself. Necromancy! Thane exclaimed as he looked around. "Hmm?" Rames asked. Thane examined the blackened skeleton. "I believe this was a living man or orc not long ago. Now it appears as if he were long dead and then some. The spell used to drain the life out of him must have been exceedingly powerful because I can still see the dweomer of necromancy clearly by using mage sight. There is a powerful residue on the girl's left palm as well. She looks awfully young to be a necromancer with such astonishing power. I'd say she's about Rapina's age, wouldn't you, Karmoz? Rames sniffed but pulled himself together, "Yes Mortancer Kroz." "And you are right; her rump is like Rapina's but the shape is not quite the same because their hips are shaped just a bit differently. She does appear to be approximately the same height and weight as Rapina and her build is similar. I believe we saw Rapina's pack on the way in, sitting on a trunk. Thane collected generous samples of the dust of the skeleton in several vials as though he felt there might be some use for it. After sweeping up most of the skeleton's dust, he inspected the pinnacle. "The chains appear to have rusted through; again I see the aura of necromancy. The room verily reeks with it." After several more minutes of investigation Thane packed up his samples. Let us see if that really was Rapina's gear. Bring the girl. This is no place for a human woman." Thane looked at his ring, "Astonishing." "What is it?" Rames asked. "Rapina's collar must be within a hundred yards or so of us to be faintly registering in spite of the fact that we are so deeply underground, come," Thane said. It took several false turns and some circuitous wending but at last Thane was led to the edge of a pool in a nearby room. There, sitting amongst a plethora of beads and shiny stones was Rapina's collar. "This pool is enchanted to drain away magic, but I believe the death of the lord of this place has diminished its power, just as the wards that once protected the lair from access via the shadow plane dissipated as we waited. Even so, had we not been so very close, the collar would never have registered. The signal is very weak while the collar is in the pool. Thane requisitioned a large jawbone from one of the nearby hangings and used it to fish the collar out of the pool. Once it was out of the water he touched his ring to it. "I think it is all right, but the fact that it is here may mean that the lord of this lair knew how to remove it without harm to its wearer or himself," Thane said. Rames shook his head. "I am sorry, Karmoz. My hopes were dashed as well. Let us investigate the pack we saw that looked like Rapina's," Thane said. A few minutes later the group had found the appropriate room and Rames was going through a trunk of items while Thane looked through a sack and the pack he had seen on top of it. Elizabetta stood guard. Thane held up a green silken bustier, "It bears the craftsmanship of the clothier we use in Argos. This is Rapina's pack. I recognize it and many of the items here." Rames held up a letter he had found in the trunk with several dresses and an assortment of women's finery, "It is from Bellany Norwit to her Mother, Lady Eleanor Norwit. The stationery bears a baronetial watermark. It is written about the start of a trip to a school in Bristol, but she never finished it. Are you familiar with Norwit? "Not particularly, but I believe Rapina is from that particular baronety of Avengene. Baronet Norwit keeps a small baronety for the Marquis in northwest Avengene. Being on the western border of Avengene's territory, he is one of Daelrath's neighbors, but his keep is too far south for the two of them to have had much regular interaction. "I think our giants severely cramped Norwit's style last year," Thane chuckled. "Yes, the ruined fort where we lost Rapina was in his territory," Rames said. Thane nodded. Rames held up an undergarment from the trunk. "There is no way that woman would fit in this garment. The bust is much too small." "You have a point, but being a teenager she may not have been fully developed when she arrived here. Then again I agree her bust is very like Rapina's but the nipples are different. Rapina's were more distracting, don't you think?" Thane asked. Rames nodded, "I've seen plenty of women in my day and very few of them are built like Rapina. This girl is though, but it's an odd coincidence." "Hmm, let me look at her aura. Thane shook his head. This woman's aura is more like Rapina's than it is like most of the normal women's I have seen, but it is certainly not exactly like Rapina's. I cannot make a positive identification, either her aura is strange but normal for her, or perhaps there is a subtle magic that pervades her aura everywhere. Rames carefully turned the girl over. "Is the magic uniform everywhere?" Thane looked carefully. "It is all so subtle and mixed with the powerful residue of the event that transpired at the pentacle. I would have to say that her aura is not quite the same over the curve of her rump as if less subtle magic had been used on it than had been used elsewhere. It could be I am only picking up residue of a recent spell that affected this woman's body, but why not so much on the rump? I do not know," Thane said. "Turn her over again." Rames complied and Thane studied her breasts. "Again here I believe I see somewhat more residue on her nipples than on the rest of her breasts and then more again on her chest and arms. I will admit that there are some elements of her aura very like Rapina's, and Rapina has an unusual aura, subtly different than any normal woman I have looked at. I am sure it is the inheritance she gained from the lust spirit that distinguishes her. I may be wrong that there are similarities in this woman; perhaps I am thinking wishfully in my interpretations. I am a necromancer, not an enchanter. My mage sight is not as sensitive as it could be. In any case this young woman is likely to wake up, but we cannot simply show our faces and ask her if she knows us. We may wish she were Rapina, but it is far more likely that she is Bellany Norwit," Thane said. Rames nodded gravely. "I suggest our only course of action is to drop her at a leech in the northern reaches of Norwit and observe her remotely. The likelihood is that she is Miss Norwit and will try to contact her parents immediately. If she does then we will know we were engaging in wishful thinking, if not then we shall see. Since she has no hair or nails I will take blood and a skin sample from one of her feet to aid in locating her. We will leave her off with her mundane possessions. We can pawn any valuables we do not recognize as Rapina's just as a couple of adventurers might if seeking remuneration for a rescue, but without wanting to face the possibility of a nobleman's wrath for being mistaken for the ones who kidnapped her in the first place. We will keep any items we know belonged to Rapina..." As he listened Rames was fiddling with the armor in the sack next to the pack Thane had been looking at. "Look at this, the banded armor breast cover nests down to expose the breast," Rames said. "For a nursing mother wearing armor?" Thane asked dubiously. Both began examining the armor more carefully. "The skirts lift quite convincingly," Thane observed. "Look at the way the tops of the leggings are cut," Rames said. Thane held up a pair of silk panties with a reinforced opening at the crotch. "This is not something the daughter of an Avengene baronet would wear," Thane said. "It looks newly made, or at least newly assembled," Rames said. "It looks like something Rapina might find useful, and it is her size. Perhaps she did better with the orcs than we had feared. In any case we will retain the armor. Norwit would dispose of it in an instant," Thane said. "I have never seen finer chain, and the alloy of the plate is not one I recognize. What of...? Rames moved the chest away from the wall. He reached down and held up Rapina's weapons belt with her rapier, main gauche and several pouches." Thane smiled. "I wondered where that might be. No doubt the new armor takes advantage of some metals found only deep underground. If this armor belonged to Rapina, then she must have been here recently. The state of her collar would tend to reinforce that hypothesis. Yet we made a thorough search of this maze from the shadow plane and came up with nothing more than what we have thus far investigated." Rames nodded as he began stuffing finery back into the chest. "We better hurry; whoever this young woman is, she cannot stay unconscious forever." "Agreed," Thane said. ----+======+++======+---- [Rapina]051 Leeched A warrior dressed in full plate and leather armor soiled with the grime of battle walked into the leech's clinic in the largest town in northern Norwit. He set an unconscious woman on a bench in the waiting room. "I am sorry, I am closing for the day," Leech Fraksen said. Rames dumped half the money from a small purse into his hand, transferred it to a one of his belt pouches and then tossed the half empty purse to the leech. The full helmet Rames wore further modified his disguised voice. "Hold, leech. There be a trunk full o' ladies finery I left at th' back door. Me an' me buddies, we foun' dis 'ere wench in an orc lair up north. She was the most well-spoken orc slave wench we ever did meet. She helped us getting around the lair some but she warn't much of a warrior. She got zapped by a orc shaman when we took da heart of deir hideaway. She gots some things that makes us figure she's noble born only we don't want some lord blamin' us for stealin' 'er, so we're leaving 'er with you. We pawned 'er jewels at jacinth's pawn shop to float 'er rescue and medical fees. If you find 'er daddy, maybe 'e'll grease yer palm too." "But you can't just leave her here," Leech Fraksen said. Rames grabbed the leech's lapels and lifted him off the floor. "Listen mister, the only thing I'm good at is killin', understand?" The leech nodded in terror. "Healers are supposed to be merciful, or at least greedy. You go about one or the other an' leave me ta killin.' It took me long enough ta haul the wench down this far South. I'm not waitin' around tryin' ta find 'er dad and see if 'e likes me, understand? Now you jus' do your duty as a leech and let me go." "Yes sir, I ah, of course. I'll take care of everything. Mercy is my middle name." The leech clutched the purse tightly. "Gud luck then." Rames set the man down, waved briefly and stalked out of the clinic. ---- It was nearly a day later when the doctor heard the first moans of pain and actual consciousness from the mystery woman's room. "Uhhuuuuhhh." The patient moaned. It seemed like she had been dead, or dreaming of a bleak rocky landscape and a dingy orange sky but she must have just been asleep for a very long time. Sometimes she seemed to escape the dingy netherworld to wander through the busy rooms of what appeared to be a small clinic, but it was impossibly crowded. It could not have been real unless there was a war on. Maybe she had dropped from exhaustion. Every muscle in her body ached, even quite a few she did not know she had. Her left arm felt dead. It throbbed with a dull pain that was at its very worse in the palm of her left hand. She was not sure which hurt more, her body or her head. They seemed to be having a contest to see which could torment her more. "Welcome back young lady. You are safe here. My name is Leech Fraksen, what is yours?" "It's, uh. I'm sorry?" The young woman mumbled as her almond-shaped hazel eyes fluttered open. She was in a clinic's sick room. It seemed somehow familiar to the clinic in her dreams, yet it was so empty. "Your name, girl, what's your name?" Leech Fraksen asked. The woman seemed to think for a while, "I... I don't know," She said. "Have you suffered a blow to the head?" Leech Fraksen asked. "My head hurts badly. Everywhere hurts badly. My left arm feels numb but it still hurts badly, especially the palm of my hand. My eyes seem okay, at least I can see." "I will have to examine you," Leech Fraksen said. "Okay, just don't expect me to move anything for you. Every single solitary muscle aches horribly." The vibrations from the impact of her large shield against a practice dumby echoed through her memory as she relived a fragment of her past. After the hours of martial drill her muscles ached. The touch of Leech Fraksen's examination broke her out of her reverie. Her skin was far too tender to enjoy the touch of a man. Leech Fraksen examined the lady. He could not help raising an eyebrow. She had a figure most of his female patients would have sold their souls for. On the other hand, she seemed to have some sort of bruising over her entire body except for a hand-sized area across her eyes and another hand-sized patch just under her breasts. The second patch had somehow spread upwards to encompass her breasts while still leaving the skin between them and elsewhere around the intact area as damaged as it was across the rest of her body. If he had to guess he would have to say that some sort of magical healing had been applied to the two unusually intact areas, but that it had been inadequate to do more than, at least temporarily, save the young lady's life. He might have thought she had been severely beaten, except that the bruising was too even and uniform to have been done with any sort of body part or instrument. In addition her hair had fallen out and was now growing back in. Currently it was no longer than the beard of a man with five o'clock shadow. "Do you remember the adventurer who brought you here?" Leech Fraksen asked. "There was an adventurer?" The lady asked. "I'll take that as a no. What about being abducted by orcs, do you remember that?" Leech Fraksen asked. The woman squinted. Her memory was full of dreams and nightmares from before she had come to. It seemed she must have been awake before now. The room she was in seemed familiar, but where were all the wounded stumping around in pain trying to get the doctor's attention? "Not dreams, I need memories," the woman thought to herself. A fragment of her past surfaced revealing a dozen lusty orcs standing around her in rapt attention as she lay in a puddle of their cum hungrily taking one after another. The woman blushed, "I am sorry, I cannot remember much, but I am pretty sure the orcs had me. Do you know who I am?" She asked. "No, but your manner of speech is educated. The adventurer that dropped you said he and his buddies had found you captive in an orc lair. He said the spell of an orc shaman had hit you. He left a trunk of things. If you like I can search them to see if there is any clue to your identity." Her memory wandered to reveal a shaman enspelling two familiar warriors. The Norseman she recognized as one of the bath-masters from her recent martial The warriors vibrated in place unable to move effectively because of the rattling spell of a troll shaman. Her memory held a troll shaman not an orc shaman? Other trolls attempted to carve her friends into meat. The scene shifted and she was caressing the mottled skin of the troll shaman. She took hold of his mighty erection and engulfed it between her legs. Uuuurrgh, the woman groaned in pain as the leech continued to examine her. "You can check the trunk if you want. I can only remember bits and pieces. They don't even make sense. It's like trying to remember a dream." "I will apply clove oil to your skin and give you something to help with the pain in your head. My wife will be in to help you with your toilette." Leech Fraksen said. "Thank you," The woman whispered wanly. --- The next day the Leech talked to the young woman after he finished with his other patients. "There is a man in town that draws. He offered to sketch your picture so we could pass it around at church and see if anyone knows you. My wife will also search the trunk full of belongings the adventurer dropped off for clues today. Would you like that?" Leech Fraksen asked. "I-I guess so. Why can I remember how to talk if I can't remember my own name?" the young woman asked. "Don't worry miss, I've heard of this sort of thing before, even seen it to one extent or another. Sometimes it happens with head injuries or in cases of enormous stress, shock or trauma. The mind seems to store knowing kinds of things and doing kinds of things in two different areas. You can forget what you know, and still know how to do what you did. Most people eventually recover. Sometimes doing something you did before you forgot yourself can help bring back the knowing associated with the doing," the leech said. "Thank you Leech Fraksen," the woman whispered. ----- Two days later it was Saturday, and Mark Reins came with his charcoals and parchment. Charlotte Fraksen finished helping the new patient clean up and then showed Reins in. "So you're the mystery girl. How are those mage wounds coming?" Reins asked. "Slowly mending. I am glad you are not painting. I don't think my skin is supposed to be yellow and blue," the young woman said. "You look beat up for sure, but I won't draw your bruises and I'll add some more hair. Artistic license is better than makeup." Reins smiled as he began to draw. I shouldn't be more than an hour," he said. A distant look came to the woman's eyes as a daydream or fragment of memory surfaced. A robed man spoke to her from the past, "Makeup is an art, with a bit of rouge and shading we make this dead woman look nearly alive." The woman snapped back to the present, "Er, It's okay, take your time. Now that I'm doing a little better I enjoy company," the woman said. "Your nostrils are moving, do you smell something?" Mark Reins asked. "It's just a tingle I get." She did not add that it seemed to happen primarily when men were present. It did not make a lot of sense to her yet. Reins worked steadily until he had completed a portrait. "There you are." The woman squinted and cocked her head, "Do I look like that?" She asked. "I've been told my portraits are very good," Reins said. "Oh, um, it's just that I have not seen myself since, since before the spell." The woman looked decidedly confused. Reins held up his index finger and spoke into the other room, "Mrs. Fraksen, do you have a mirror I could burrow. The patient wants to see if I have done well and cannot remember what she looks like." Mrs. Fraksen brought a mirror and the woman stared at herself for the longest time, tracing her fingers over her face and looking at her very short reddish auburn hair. Finally she looked at the portrait again. "It is a good likeness. Thank you, Mark. "I cannot believe the things I cannot remember." "Or some of the things I can," she added silently within her mind. "It's my pleasure, uh, well whatever your name might be. The Vindicator enjoins us to help those in need," Reins said. The woman squinted as she heard a voice from her fragmented past, "Your sins are grave for one so young." The voice was that of a priest wandering the halls of her memory. He had the eyes of madness." The woman blinked, "Uh of course," she mumbled. ----- A week later the clattering of hooves filled the lane outside the leech's office. The movement of armed men could be heard outside and several came in. A man clad in armor strode into her room. "Bellany! It is you!" The man looked to be about to pick her up and hug her but the leech put his arm before the man's chest. "Forgive me milord, the lady is bruised to the bone nearly everywhere on her body. Were you to hug her, the pain would be excruciating," Leech Fraksen cautioned. Bellany put her head in her hands, "I am so sorry. I am more than half-dead and everywhere bruised. I do not remember anyone. I cannot even remember my own name." You are Bellany Norwit, my daughter. You are in Norwit and I am Lord Darl Norwit the Baronet of Norwit under Marquis Avengene. We were sure you were dead. Leech Fraksen said an adventurer brought you in. He lifted the leech right off the floor and told him he was only good at killing and that the leech ought to handle the mercy for him," Norwit chuckled. The ache in her left palm against her forehead intensified and an eerie scene filled Ballany's mind. She was looking at the specter of herself standing in a barren yet somehow familiar landscape. "Daddy is a very busy man. I spent much more time with mother but he taught me chess one year on the eve of the vindicator's birth." Bellany looked up at Lord Norwit, "I am sorry I don't remember you. Are you sure I am your daughter?" She asked. The pain in Lord Norwit's eyes was evident, as if his daughter's words had stabbed him through the heart. I am sure you are my daughter. "You have grown some, and filled out quite a bit, but I know my own daughter's face. Early last fall you were making the journey to the Barony of Bristol to go to a prestigious boarding school. Your guards and coach were overcome by orcs. I feel so badly. Just a day after you left I received word that two of our forts had fallen to orcs and giants. Usually we would have known earlier, but this group of orcs was uncommonly efficient. Not a single scout escaped the night of the attacks. The orcs took your carriage. We found the remains of the guards. Things got so bad that year I had to request aid from Marquis Avengene several times. We nearly lost our keep a few weeks later. That orc tribe nearly broke us. Reinforcements from the south arrived just in time. Thankfully, Avengene later struck up an important alliance with Lord Heinrich Li'Yieraun and his mage, Nordula. With the aid of a mage for transportation and the power of the highest priests of the Vindicator, we put many of the giants into their graves. We had never seen so many giants working for the orcs before." Bellany nodded, "I wish I could remember you. I wish I could remember anything. Bellany hesitated in confusion, did you teach me chess?" Norwit brightened, "Yes, I did. I never spent as much time with you as I should have, but one winter on the eve of the vindicator's birthday when you were eight years old I did teach you chess. I am sorry your memory is damaged. Maybe it is better this way. You were taken by orcs. The Vindicator knows how they must have brutalized you. This way you have a fresh start." Bellany nodded gravely, "You mean I am probably not a virgin." "No, but you are alive and that is what counts, "You cannot imagine how much your mother and I worried" ------------ [Rapina]052 A Night As Dark As Sable The journey to her parents' home seemed a long one. She was carried to and deposited on the seat of the Norwit coach. Once underway she had felt every bump the wheels of the carriage had touched, and every one of them hurt her bruised body. The nebulous shooting pains and the blood she had seen in her urine in the days before the trip told her that some of her internal organs were damaged. She was very worried and wondered if she would ever fully recover. Nevertheless she tried to keep a tired eye on the countryside, and to listen to her mother, Eleanor Norwit trying to cheer her up. Since she remembered nothing about herself she found her mother's chatter educational. Her family consisted of her parents and two brothers, Charles and Darren. She was supposedly sixteen, although somehow she had thought she was older. Charles, her senior by one year, was at a finishing school in Bristol. Darren, her fourteen-year-old brother had a tutor and was helping her father and their steward run the estate. He was already being groomed for a career in management. Bellany found out that before her accident she had been active in the church of the vindicator, helping her mother with Sunday school and charity events. She was adept at needlepoint and backgammon. She read and wrote poetry, sang in the church choir and played the lyre and the lute. The only trouble was, she did not remember one wit of what her mother told her, yet both of her parents were absolutely certain that they recognized her as their daughter who had been abducted by orcs last year in the late summer. Lawns, hayfields and farms surrounded keep Norwit but there was a small walled town about a mile south named Emmitsville. Both the keep and the town had suffered extensive damage from the attacks of giants and orcs. Only reinforcements from the East had saved them from utter destruction. Keep Norwit had been largely repaired. It consisted of a tower keep on a small hill that was attached to a walled courtyard. Built into the front wall of the courtyard were a gatehouse and a sturdy, fortified manor house. A carriage house and various other outbuildings were built against the other walls of the courtyard. When at last she was carried to her bedroom within the manor house and put into her bed, Bellany slept like the dead waking up only on occasion because of internal pain and then drifting back to sleep. It was sometime the next day when she truly awakened. The heavy drapes had been drawn across her windows so that she could sleep but she could see there was light behind them. She looked around her room. She saw a fireplace containing a bed of glowing embers with a thick log atop them, a bookshelf, a desk, a bureau and a dressing table with a mirror. On the walls she saw a painting of an elaborate church of the vindicator and one of an old man and woman she did not know. There were three doors out of the room. The room did not look familiar. She wanted to walk around but after sitting up she decided she was just not up to it. There was a bell on the night table next to her bed. She picked it up and rang it. A woman perhaps ten years her senior entered the room. "Yes milady Bellany?" the maid said. Bellany blinked, "I am sorry, I really should remember you, but I cannot remember much since the spell, only bits and pieces that don't fit." "It's all right Miss Bellany, My name's Grace and I'm the chamber maid. Lady Eleanor said you were in bad shape, includin' your memory. Bellany nodded, "I really don't even know if I am Bellany Norwit. I don't recognize anyone. I don't even recognize myself when I look in the mirror. Lord and Lady Norwit say I look just like Bellany, only I've filled out some." Aye, you are Bellany aright. I would know your face anywhere, even as black and blue as it is, and even if I didn't, I'd recognize the sound of your voice. I was your maid since I was a girl. You were just a baby then," Grace said. "Thank you, it's comforting to know people remember me, even if I don't remember them, or even myself," Bellany said. "Lord Norwit said ye ran afowl of an orc sorcerer," Grace said. Bellany blinked as she remembered a mottled green creature without legs or arms affixed to a stand. It was troll, not an orc. "Er, yes, I think that's what happened, but I can't remember more than shreds that don't fit together." "Perhaps in time ye'll put the pieces together, Missy," Grace said. Bellany nodded, "I hope so. I wonder if you could tell me what time of day it is and when the next meal is coming?" Bellany asked. Grace smiled, "Well I guess ye're ready to face the day then. That door there is your closet, the next one is your privy and the one I came through goes into the manor. It's an hour or two before supper, but the cook has orders to send you something mild to eat whenever ye've a mind for it." Bellany nodded. "Yes, I would like something like a thin oatmeal gruel. I can't chew for long; it hurts too much. I mostly have to drink my meals." Bellany wrinkled her nose. Somehow I need to make it to the privy too, but it's difficult even for me to sit up..." After a meal and a brief visit from her parents, Bellany went back to sleep. She woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat after dreaming of bedding a hoard of pirates. It was amazing how lifelike they all were too. Each had his own personality, and their leader, Red Jack, had quite a sense of humor. Bellany rolled her eyes, "My dreams are too crazy, she whispered to herself. The fire gave off only a faint glow. Did she see shadows? Her left hand went to the chain on her neck that was not there. The palm tickled strangely in the brief moment it was facing the room. "Did I once have a light?" she questioned herself. She blinked as her errant memory showed her a dark scene. She was climbing a ladder. She approached an illuminated crystal that hung from a metal grating above her. Bellany cocked her head, "Magic?" she whispered. She found she could sit up as long as she could tolerate the pain of her bruises as she struggled to an upright position. Now that she had, had about a week and a half to recover, she was sure her head and chest were the least damaged parts of her body. Her right shoulder seemed fairly strong, but her left arm was still very hurt, especially the palm of her left hand. It felt dead yet ached at the same time. She guessed it was that ache that had awakened her. Her legs were too weak to hold her, yet she could not help but think they were not going to get stronger unless she used them. She wanted to light some candles and walk around, but she could not walk, it was too dark and she was too weak. She promised herself she would try to explore the room sometime tomorrow during daylight. The next day Bellany awakened sometime around noon. She felt a little stronger and even better yet after breakfast. Nevertheless, she knew her strength would not last for many hours and the shooting pains she sometimes suffered frightened her. After seeing her mother, she pretended to be having trouble staying awake. Her mother left her so that she could take a nap. Bellany really did doze for a few minutes, but then she woke up and turned her covers down, primarily with her right hand. She used the same hand to help swing her legs off the bed. The floor looked a long ways off even though it was less that a foot below her feet. Since the chair her mother always sat in was close to the bed, Bellany decided to make that her target. She turned over on her belly and slid off the bed until her feet touched the ground. Then she put as much weight on her legs as she could and fell backwards into the chair. She nearly missed and spilled herself on the floor but thanks to her right arm she managed to get the chair under her. She put her right hand between her legs and grasped the chair, then scooted along over the rugs to the desk. She searched it finding ink, quills and parchment. There was one drawer that contained some scrap paper with bits of poems and various other writings on it that had not turned out. Bellany looked at the writing. Something did not seem right. She took a quill and began to copy a poem fragment right next to the fragment itself. Her heart sank when she saw the writing was not the same. She began to cry but instinctively held down her volume. She felt so vulnerable. "Surely I could not remember how to write but forget how to write like I used to," Bellany thought to herself. I cannot be Bellany Norwit, but if I am not then who am I? "Think, think think," Bellany muttered to herself. "I have to think and act like, like, like what? I have to think like someone who is objective, cold, and rational. Bellany's mind swam as she remembered talking to a naked warrior in a great iron cauldron bath, "He doesn't know if I am a queen or a pawn and that interferes with his chess game... I assure you I am the white queen. I have to think like a chess master, the chess master, but who is that and what is a white queen?" "Never mind that, I need to think about now. I am sorely wounded. I need medical care and I need to put the pieces of my memory together. If I am not Bellany Norwit, I need to know who I really am and why I seem to be her. I need time, time to recover. First I need to know this is Bellany's writing and not the writing of one of her parents who gave her the parchment. The young woman searched through the drawer of scrap paper and did find some writing in different hands but none of it was hers. Finally she found an old note to "mother" signed Bellany in the same script as had been used to write the poem. "Until I know who I am, I am Bellany Norwit. I am going to stay here with servants, parents, food, medical attention and a warm bed," Bellany assured herself. She began copying poem fragments, matching her writing to the writing on the page until she could write Bellany script without looking at an example. Her fingertips hurt even though she held the quill lightly, but she did not care. Her survival was at stake. When she was done she carefully scooted her chair to the fire, and burned her practice sheets. She made sure every sheet of parchment was turned completely to ash and then she retraced her path to her bed, smoothing the rug with her feet as she scooted the chair along under her. She then managed to push herself up with her right hand and legs and flop onto the bed on her belly. Rolling the rest of the way onto the bed was an excruciating chore but she did it, and she got herself into bed. When she was done she was exhausted. She knew she would pay for her excursion, but she felt more secure knowing that even if she were somehow not Bellany, at least she could write like Bellany. Being badly bruised and too weak to walk, Bellany was confined to her bedroom. She hated the confinement even more than being in pain. Thankfully she had guests, her pensive mother came to see her often, and her more bearable father usually appeared once or twice a day when he was home. Her brother Darren came to see her when she first got home and occasionally he came to visit along with Lord Norwit in the mornings. She could also sometimes get her maid Grace to talk to her, and more importantly, Grace would get her books from her shelf and help her with mundane things she could not yet do by herself. Bellany had started on the top shelf and was very rapidly working her way down. She pretended to be browsing and skimming, but in truth she was reading and studying as best she could, given her condition. In spite of what would have seemed to others to be good progress, she felt so slow as if some essential vitality were missing from her mind. On a Monday morning a few days after Bellany's arrival at Nowit Manor, Eleanor Norwit, Bellany's mother, was there in her daughter's room when there came a knocking at the door. "Come in. Why Reverend Wright, it is so good to see you, and so considerate of you to come and see my poor Bellany," Eleanor Norwit said. Bellany sat up and looked at the Reverend. He was a somewhat homely narrow-shouldered man whose arrow- straight brown hair threatened to obscure his fanatical brown eyes. She felt a tingle that somehow was not quite right. Even though there was something off about the tingle the Reverend gave her, it seemed like something that she sorely missed, something that she had half forgotten but that nevertheless filled her mind with whispers that she could not quite hear. "Baby remember your modesty," Eleanor pushed Bellany's covers up, as though each of her fingers were a swarm of angry bees. "I am sorry Reverend Wright, Bellany's memory shattered from the stresses of her ordeal and the magic of an orc shaman. She does not seem to remember that others still can see. "Don't worry Lady Norwit, the nightgown you have her in is as modest as most summer dresses. You needn't concern yourself about impropriety. Its Bellany's soul we all have to worry about, her body will mend as best it can, Vindicator willing. I only wish I were senior enough in my role as a priest that I could offer some healing, but alas, I have not yet been so blessed," Reverend Wright said. Bellany somehow connected her mother's busy bee fingers with the Reverend's grasping after her soul. She could tell by the tone of Lady Eleanor's voice that her mother fawned over the young man's every word. Bellany decided she would have to pretend to like the Reverend, just as he was pretending to care about her. Bellany was not sure what it was he did care about, but she would find out. "Since you missed Sunday's sermon, I told Lady Norwit I would come deliver it to you personally," Reverend Wright said. "That is so kind of you Reverend, thank you." She could not say why, but there was something about the Reverend that bothered her. Her mother was a busy woman and she was called away in the middle of the sermon. She promised to return later. Bellany studied the man who spoke with such fanatical conviction, and decided he was here to make sure the vindicator still had her soul. Somehow she felt that if the vindicator had ever had it, he had lost it of late. She sat up a little and was rewarded by a tingle, and by some happenstance of habit she did something within her mind and body to pull on that tingle. She was rewarded by another tingle. The tingle definitely seemed to come from Reverend Wright. She had felt the same thing when she had told the artist Mark Reins that she enjoyed company. There was no doubt that these tingles tied in with the aching need she felt in her loins. Bellany smiled to herself and sat up more. She gazed raptly at the sermonizing Reverend pacing back and forth across the floor of her room and she pretended to be as stuck on the man as her mother while she played the tingle game with him to keep herself occupied. By the end of the sermon she could get Wright to send her a nose-tickling tingle at will. It gave her an odd sense of power even though she felt so beaten and powerless otherwise. When the sermon was done, the Reverend came to sit in the chair by her bed, the one usually occupied by her mother. He looked a little flushed. "Have you any questions on the sermon, young Lady Norwit?" Reverend Wright asked. Bellany wanted to tell the man what a phony he was. He pretended to care about her, but what he really cared about was harvesting her soul for the Vindicator. She found him intolerable, but she wanted him to rip her clothes off nevertheless. There was an aching hunger in her loins worse even than the throbbing dead pain in her left palm. She needed something he could give her so badly that it hurt. Bellany decided she would go along with his game and make him believe he was succeeding famously at stealing her soul for the Vindicator. Besides, if she resisted, she was sure he would probably just work all the harder and send her mother after her as well. Everyone seemed to pity her anyway; she decided to work from there. "How can the Vindicator save my soul, Reverend Wright? I am bruised to the bone from the spell of an orc shaman. I think the orcs must have taken my virginity from me, but I have no way of knowing for sure that they did. No man will ever have me after what they probably did to me, and I will become an old, dried-up spinster," Bellany sniffled. Reverend Wright wiped the tear from Bellany's face. Touching her made him ache with desire but he held firm. "Don't worry lady, your afflictions are severe but even while you were in the vile clutches of the orcs, the Vindicator made your body blossom like a rose. You were a girl when I saw you last; now you are a beautiful woman. If you could only see yourself now, you would know that even after all that has befallen you, the Vindicator will bring you a fine, forgiving husband. You must have faith," Reverend Wright said. "Do you really think so, Reverend Wright?" Bellany asked. "The reverend's eyes traced over the magnificent curve of her breasts. Your lines are exquisite, milady, your body is a work of art. Even after your ordeal, men will take notice of you. I promise," Reverend Wright said. Bellany's nipples rose to dent the fabric of her nightgown. Wright inhaled deeply. "I pray you are right Reverend, but I cannot go on wondering what the orcs did to me. I need someone to tell me if I am still a virgin, and if not whether I can ever be with a man after what they have done to me. "I cannot do such a thing for you, Bellany. The vindicator demands celibacy of his priests. It is a great sacrifice. The church has been cracking down on errant priests of late, and besides, everyone knows if any man anywhere in Norwit dared to touch you, your father would have him hanged," Reverend Wright said. "Please Reverend, I cannot trust anyone else to do it. My father will never know, I promise," Bellany said. The reverend hesitated for a long moment. I am sorry lady, you must look for yourself when you are well enough, and you may feel inside if you are in doubt of your capacity for a man. If there is no membrane barring the way into the depths of you then surely the orcs have broken your purity, but true purity is of the soul. Give yourself to the vindicator and he will restore the purity of your soul," Reverend Wright said. Bellany could see the reverend was too far-gone into the vindicator's fold to bring him between her folds. In a way she would have preferred if he were lecherous. At least she would still have been able to count him as a man. This reverend was not even a man. His soul had been stolen and he reveled in it. Bellany wondered at the finesse of the vindicator. How he must be envied by every silver-tongued demon that wished to possess the minds and souls of others. Who else could convince so many so easily that in giving up their souls they were found, but were they to leave their souls where nature had intended they would be lost? Bellany blinked as her fragmented memory parted with another gem. "I will give you potent magic, and more than mere dreams of lust. Simply open your mind to me, let me come into you and fill you with my power." It was the spirit of lust contained in a stone that had once tried to steal her soul for its own use talking. Had she succumbed? She wished she had other memories to add to it, but it was only a piece in a large, complex puzzle. Bellany suddenly realized she needed to react to the real world and not her memories, "Oh yes, yes I will give myself to the vindicator, Reverend. I must be filled with his purity." Bellany crossed her fingers behind her back and pretended to be swept up in the moment. "Let us pray..." Reverend Wright said. Bellany prayed like a fanatic, and when her mother came in sometime later, Bellany was still praying with the reverend. She pretended to have been enraptured by the reverend's words. She was not sure which she felt more strongly compelled to do, to roll off the bed laugh- screaming or to throw up. Somehow she managed to uphold her ruse until both of them had left, and then she hid under the covers and shook herself with a mixture of revulsion and silent laughter. She did not know why she had such a strong negative reaction to the vindicator, but there certainly was no denying it. ---- Bellany had many dreams as she slept through the next few nights and napped through parts of the days. At night she was still uneasy. It seemed as if she could sometimes sense the presence of others in her room. To make matters worse, so many of her dreams and flashbacks would have curled her mother's hair. She wondered if she could have actually done even half the things she had dreamed of or "remembered." Her memories troubled her but not nearly so much as her injuries. The fragmentary memories and the dreams she had were all wrong for the innocent daughter of Eleanor Norwit. Somehow they were tied to the lust spirit of the stone. Her past was an illusive sorcery. Yet if she was not Bellany Norwit as she suspected, then who was she? Perhaps she was a doppelganger with amnesia? Surely she must be loosing her mind. For the moment she decided to remain the orc-abused daughter of a baronet. ---- Several mornings after her "consultation" with the reverend her father came to visit. Oddly, she felt much more comfortable with him than with her mother. Her mother had expectations that she would return to being the Bellany she always had been, and that she would take the same pleasure at loosing her soul that her mother did. Her father, on the other hand, was a man who had somehow retained his soul in spite of the presence of the vindicator in his household. He was a practical military man and the former Bellany had spent much less time with him than with her mother. "Daddy, I don't understand one whit of it. Leech Fraksen said memories of doing would be more durable than memories of knowing. He said if I did the things I used to do I would pick them up rapidly if not instantly, and that they would help me remember things associated with them. Mother has told me what I used to enjoy. She was helping me to sing my formerly favorite hymns to the vindicator last night. I have been doing my best to humor her and the reverend, but just between you and I, religion just does not seem as practical as it once did. I guess mother thought I would be just fine after the reverend raised my spirits, but I'm not just fine. At least not the way she wants me to be just fine." Darl smiled, "Bellany, your mother and I understand you have been through a lot even if you don't remember it. Spending most of a year as the slave of the orcs cannot help but have changed you. We can tell that. The way that you talk and the way that you act, everything has changed. The little girl you were is gone and we realize we can never get her back. Your mother and I just want you to get better, and she thinks religion is going to heal you. I am not sure what to think. I just wish I had done a better job keeping the orcs off the roads." "I don't blame you, daddy. As a child your competent actions somehow managed to convince me that we were not living in a frontier battle zone. That means you must have been very effective at keeping the orcs at bay. Sooner or later they were bound to come up with something to throw you off your stride. At least you are hard at work keeping Norwit safe. Daddy, from the bits I remember I know I am a hundred times removed from being a virgin. Furthermore after nearly a year with the orcs I realize I cannot possibly be anything but barren if I did not bear a half-orc baby and I see no sign of a past pregnancy. I cannot be a pious vindicator wife. I may pretend to humor mother, but I can never be what she wants me to be. I need to learn to do something practical." "Mother had been training me to be a dutiful wife and pious indoctrinator of the young, but it is likely that I will never bear children. What I used to do had little practical value. Do you have any books other than those religious tracts and books of poems?" Bellany wrinkled her nose. I am so tired of the old me. It seems such a sham in the face of what has become of me." Baronet Norwit shook his head sadly, "Bellany you used to live for those things and now..." Bellany sighed, "Those things seem so worthless to me now, daddy. I guess there is nothing like being a slave of the enemy to make you realize you are at war. I will do what I can to spare mother's feelings, but I have no interest in most of the things I used to do. I would like to try to re-learn music, but I just can't get interested in poems and those prayers and hymns to the vindicator. I went through the books on my shelf and found nothing meatier than a book on needlepoint techniques. Do you have any practical books like men read?" "You mean books on how to kill orcs by the hundreds?" Baronet Norwit asked. "Maybe just by the tens or twenties," Bellany smiled. "I don't want to get too ambitious." Darl chuckled and shook his head, "I have plenty of books on warfare, but you used to avoid them like the plague. Not to mention your mother would not approve." "I was a frivolous child who had no idea where she was living or what might happen if a few giants got past the forts in the north and brought their orcish side- kicks with them. If you pick out some books for me, I would like to look through them and read any that seem interesting. You can tell mother it is just some histories where our side wins instead of what happened in my case. Tell her that I am weak, bored and have a vendetta against the orcs," Bellany said. "I would be happy to pick a few out for you, although I am sure I will hear about it from your mother," Lord Norwit said. "Mother is just going to have to accept the fact that her meek and faithful little girl was ruined by orcs. Since the legion of orcs never got me pregnant, she will have to forgive me if I think it is unlikely that I will ever be able to fill the role of childbearing wife and mother that she has chosen for me. I will have to find something else to do," Bellany said. Lord Norwit grimaced and nodded, "Most women enslaved by the orcs bear child after child of mixed blood from the repeated rapes." "Bellany nodded. I will never be able to please mother the way I used to. I have already accepted that," Bellany said. Lord Norwit sighed, "I am sure this will disturb your mother to no end, but I understand. I must get on with my day. I will have someone bring you some practical books," Lord Norwit said. Thank you daddy, Bellany gave Lord Norwit's hand a squeeze. During the following week Bellany slept a great deal while her body was mending, yet as she reached a certain point of wellness her aches, including the one in her loins awakened her at odd times and kept her sleep shallow. To make matters worse, when she did awaken at night any stir or shadow startled her as though ghosts beset her. Thankfully she was given crutches and began practicing with them to supplement the weakness of her legs. During her waking hours she read as much as she could. Her father began making it a point to visit her early every morning, and during that time she would talk to him about what she had read. "Good morning Bellany," Darl Norwit looked dubiously at the stack of volumes on Bellany's night table and the even larger stack on the floor just in front of it. I see Steward Brosk is taking his job a little too seriously," Norwit said. "He is now. He brought me three books on the first day. That was hardly enough. I had to complain bitterly." Bellany smiled. "It was?" The baronet looked a bit confused. "Yes, he underestimated what I can do when I have a mind to. Especially when I spend so much of my time trapped in bed. Besides, I can't say I like all the books. Some I just browse through," Bellany stretched the truth for her father's benefit. She had found she could read even complex material quite rapidly as long as the shooting pains she sometimes got did not distract her. Evidently her training in reading poems and prayers had not been a total waste even if she could not remember any of them save the ones she had read after her ordeal. "At first he brought me military histories. I read about a lot of battles, tactics and eeevil politics," Bellany rolled her eyes and grinned. Then I read this one Randal's Art of the Sword. It's a training manual. Unfortunately I am sure mom would as soon send me back to the orc tribe that snatched me as let me receive training at arms. Bellany grinned. Some of the exercises in it were interesting though. Today I am going to try the few I might be able to do in my condition. I am thinking I really will have to do something to get my strength back after being in bed for so long." "You're contemplating exercises?" Darl Norwit raised an eyebrow. Bellany nodded, "I'm sure mother would not approve, but why shouldn't I exercise? I have muscles don't I, and they have been weakened by my injuries. Maybe if I could have run faster I would have gotten away from the orcs. That reminds me, do we have horses daddy? It seems like we ought to." "Yes we do for the cavalrymen and couriers," Norwit said. "Did I used to ride them?" Bellany asked. "You and your mother would occasionally ride to church in your finery," Norwit said. "I was thinking maybe if I could have ridden a real horse real fast, I might have gotten away from the orcs," Bellany said. "You seem a little obsessed with orcs, daughter. I wish there were something that I could have done to have spared you the ordeal..." Norwit said. "I am not blaming you, daddy. I wish there were something I could have done to spare me that ordeal too. I think there were several things I could have done, and I aim to do them even if it means sneaking around behind mother's back. Daddy, what is the fastest horse you own?" "Starstruck, my black Andalusian stallion. He's not as large as many of the cavalry horses, but he is faster than any of them. Most of my cavalry horses are gelded because that makes them more manageable in battle, but Star is far to valuable to be gelded. His characteristics improve my local stock immeasurably. Bellany...I really wish I could have prevented the orcs from... Lord Norwit cleared his throat and started over. You must not think of riding right now. You need to put everything into recovering." Bellany nodded, reached out and squeezed her father's hand. "You work very hard to keep Norwit safe, daddy, to the point of sometimes having to neglect your own family. I approve. I am still very confused about what happened to me. My memory is just bits and pieces at best. I have to take the word of others on who I am. I don't even know I am really your daughter. The few bits I do remember would turn mother into a crying wreck so I am keeping them to myself. "Bellany I admire your strength but... this is not like you," Norwit said. "In my recent past the alternative to strength was death. Perhaps death is what really happened to Bellany at the hands of the orcs, daddy, and I am just some lost spirit possessing her body. In which case you should not tell me any grave secrets," Bellany cautioned. "I have to learn strength in spite of mother and the reverend. I know it is not going to be easy." Darl Norwit looked genuinely troubled at his daughter's words, yet there was a part of him that was proud of her, even if she was going against propriety to the nth degree. ----- Thane came into the abode's dining nook looking a bit preoccupied. He nodded a greeting to Rames, sat down and played with his oatmeal. "I am sorry Guardian Thane, I am just not as creative with food as Rapina was." "It's no matter Guardian Rames. I do not expect you to fill Rapina's shoes, anymore than I would expect you to dress in Argosian lingerie and tug on the strings of my lust while I was attempting to eat breakfast," Thane chuckled. I am preoccupied because I have been looking in on the Norwit girl periodically as I had promised. Perhaps more often than I had intended. You see, in spite of my not sleeping with Rapina, I find that I am feeling nearly as heartbroken as you seem to be. In a way I feel as though I cheated myself in not availing myself of what she so freely offered, but at the time I captured her I felt she needed a father figure more than yet another lover. Perhaps in providing her with a father figure, I inadvertently adopted her as my daughter and now I am feeling like a parent who has a missing child. It is hard to say. Even though I have so many more servitors than I once did. I feel... "Bereft?" Rames nodded, "I understand, but any more talk like that is going to break my heart. Is there any good news, anything?" "I did the ritual of communion with Mortaebius and was assured that Rapina is not among the dead, yet I cannot help but get the impression that our patron is being evasive about her whereabouts. I even tried locating her solely through non-clerical magical means using my mirror. One time I was sure I was on a roll, but when the image resolved it was Bellany Norwit. For lack of anything better to do I decided to look in on Ms Norwit more often." "As you know, Ms Norwit did not remember whom she was when she awakened, thus complicating what should have been a simple test. Evidently the trauma had made a mess of her memory. Nevertheless, I have neither the time nor the magical resources to watch her for lengthy periods. The best I can do is a spot check now and again. This morning I happened to look in on her and she was attempting to do exercises in spite of her rather grave condition. She is still very weak and after briefly attempting a few exercises, she had to give up. She is not bouncing back like Rapina would. I did see that she was reading a book on swordsmanship she had gleaned from her father's library, and the other books that had visible titles were military in nature, not the sort of thing I would expect a noblewoman to be reading. The problem is that if she were Rapina, her survival would depend on her seeming to be Bellany Norwit. If her memory were muddled she might lack the information to realize she ought to make an effort to give me a clue as to her identity." "Has she been chasing men? If that is Rapina and she is wounded, you know she'd need it in the worst way," Rames said. Thane smiled, "I suppose you are right, unfortunately until recently she has been unable to stray far from her bed. She now uses crutches to walk since her legs and her left arm are weak. Even had she wanted to chase men, there would have been no opportunity. Now that she can get around on crutches I shall try to look in on her at various times of day to see if she does have any interactions with males. The keep is garrisoned, but I imagine Lord Norwit would string up any man who was a big enough fool to bed his daughter." Rames shook his head, "That would be a desperate situation for Rapina." Thane nodded, "You realize this is a long shot. I should not even be doing it, yet since I have promised myself I would practice skrying every chance I got, there is no reason why I cannot make Ms Norwit one of the people I apply my practice sessions to." Rames nodded, "Until we get a better lead, it's at least something." "Agreed, and even if I am merely spinning my wheels, it feels good to be doing something." ----------- It felt good to be able to move around even if it was on crutches and even if it sometimes caused her to hurt inside. She could not yet negotiate stairs but had promised herself she would learn. Bellany started trying to sleep after dinner each night, but got up at the crack of dawn every morning because that was the time her father could always visit her when he was home, and she actually enjoyed seeing him. She did not have to put on near as much of an act for him as she did for her mother. She was rapidly devouring the books he and Steward Brosk brought her and she enjoyed talking some of them over with her father whose military knowledge was appreciable, and who had the kind of experience that went beyond mere book knowledge. Even though she was determined to get her strength back, she still spent a lot of time in bed and most of that time she spent reading. Currently she was in one of the back bedrooms of the manor looking out the window into the courtyard. Down below she could see her father and lieutenant Florin reviewing the garrison troops. Soon they would start weapons practice. Three days ago she had discovered weapons practice when lieutenant Florin and sergeant Lime had demonstrated some swordsmanship with live steel. Bellany had heard and had watched from a window at the end of the corridor that led past her bedroom. Since then she had not missed a day. She sat and ate part of her breakfast as she raptly watched two score of men practice at arms. Her finger had a habit of straying under her nightgown as she watched. She did not know why, but her female parts seemed to be better off than much of the rest of her as if some natural flow pattern of energy had diverted a certain amount of the power that had restored the patch just under her breasts down to her loins. One of the younger men's practice swords clattered off his opponent's low parry and then thwacked his opponent's instep. Bellany's mouth opened as she daydreamed a scene... "First off we're gonna do is run ye 'round Red Jack's Isle ta see how tough ye are... I don't cater ta wimps here, and' this trainin' is oriented ta survival o' the fittest. She could see them running too, a whole bunch of boys. She got the impression they were pirates. She remembered bedding the same pirates from her dream. She shook her head. She came up with the wildest stories in her head. Obviously she had dreamed that one up before her accident for the same reason her finger was nudging her nub. "Honestly, I really must have needed a man when I dreamed those stories up. I suppose it was because daddy would hang anyone who touched me. Pirate ships, sweating recruits... Bellany saw the image of a naked Norsemen, blonde and bigger than life. She grinned, "and pike-bearing Norsemen. Being a noblewoman is like being in a golden cage in a way. I wonder if I was always this crazy for men?" ------ The next day began with her mother's voice. Bellany! Wake up dear we have to get you ready for church! Bellany groaned quietly. She had to wake up and put on her vindicator act for the benefit of her mother. She managed it and in not too long a time her mother and Grace had her cleaned up. They had made some alterations to one of her Sunday dresses and she now fit into it nicely. She smiled at sergeant Lime and the tingles he provoked as he and her father bore her down stairs on a litter. She ate breakfast with her family in the great hall and then was rushed off to a carriage. The church was in Emittsville. It was fairly large and looked to have been built within the last ten years. There were lots of people there and everyone was eager to greet her father the baron who evidently did not make it to church very often. After greeting her parents they invariably welcomed Bellany home. From many of the men she felt the same nose and spine tickling feeling as she had from the reverend and sergeant Lime. She suddenly realized she was feeling their lust and it made her ache for a lover all the more. After addressing the baron, Reverend Wright greeted her with open arms, and told her how glad he was to see her back in church and then he rushed off to the pulpit to start the service. "Before I start the service I would like you all to welcome Lady Bellany Norwit back into the fold," Wright announced. "We are sure she had many harrowing experiences after being taken slave by the orcs. As she courageously helped the adventurers who rescued her in their battle against the most powerful of the orcs, she was hit by the foul sorcery of an orc shaman and nearly killed. Yet the vindicator sometimes tips his hand to the faithful. Her rescuers won the day and took her to the office of Leech Fraksen in the north. In spite of horrible damage that goes right through her mortal body miraculously, her eyes were unharmed and she pulled through. It has taken her some time but she is walking again with the aid of crutches. Her memory was severely traumatized so don't take offense if she does not remember you. She did not remember her own name when she was found and has taken the word of friends and family as to whom she is. Please welcome Lady Bellany Norwit. The parishioners applauded and several of them called out greetings and welcomes. Bellany waved and smiled to everyone, and then settled in to listen to the reverend as he sermonized. She tried not to let her mouth twitch too much during the sermon. There was something that deeply bothered her about the vindicator, but she could not say why she felt that way. After the service she stood near the back of the church and most of the congregation greeted her and gave their condolences that she had, had to endure so much. "I am so glad you could be with us this morning, Baron Norwit as we welcomed Bellany back into the fold", Reverend Wright said. "How is your memory coming, Bellany, does the church look familiar? You and your mother have spent many fine hours here." "Thank you reverend," Bellany said. "So far I really don't remember anything other than a few horrors at the hands of the orcs. It seems like I should remember the church, but nothing I have seen yet has rung a bell. I have no idea where anything is." "We will just have to remedy that Lady Bellany. I enjoy showing off this house of the vindicator. Let me offer you my arm and I'll give you the royal tour," Reverend Wright said. "Thank you reverend," Bellany curtsied and grimaced as her legs protested. "It looks like you could use the arms of two men," Reverend Wright said. "Allow me," Lord Norwit said. "Thank you daddy," Bellany said. The baronet and the reverend took Bellany through the church but nothing looked familiar at first. There was a hall on one side of the sanctuary where the arts and crafts of various children and parishioners were displayed. One of the displays was different and read, "Enemies of the Church and the Marquisate. Bellany stopped suddenly as she saw one of the faces. "Ho there," reverend Wright said as Bellany brought him to an abrupt stop. Do you recognize this display?" Bellany blinked and tried to seem a lot less disturbed than she was, "I don't think so, but I wanted to look at the faces since I've just come back from being among the orcs and outlaws. Do you know anything about these people?" "Some of them I have heard stories about," the reverend said. Bellany pointed, "Who is this Captain Red Jack?" "He's the foulest reaver on the Augustana River. For years he and his pirates terrorized river settlements. A couple of years ago he and his men were nearly destroyed out east on Grand Lake by a man as foul as them, a sorcerer-priest of Mortaebius..." Reverend Wright said. Bellany's vision swam as her memory conjured a torch- lit scene. "Blood an' bones!" hollered the now-familiar muscle-bound Norseman from Bellany's dreams. This time he was fighting walking skeletons and ordering pirates to stand firm. "Hold yer ground an' drive these bags a bones back t' the hells they came from!" The reverend was continuing his story, "...Red Jack was captured and sent to Turnmoor to be executed, but some of his allies and a few crewmen who had fled the battle with the sorcerer helped the captain escape at the last minute. Lord Heinrich Li Yeiraun hunted Red Jack down and would have defeated him but for the intervention of a powerful necromancer that had allied himself with the filthy pirate." "Is the vindicator at war with this death god Mortaebius? The one whose priest captured Red Jack?" Bellany asked. "Well in a matter of speaking yes. The forces of the vindicator drove the evil minions of Mortaebius out of the Marquisate and burned his temples. We will fight those ghouls any way we can!" the reverend exclaimed. The reverend cleared his throat, "Anyway the necromancer also raided the magic from Lord Li'Yieraun's keep and angered Nordula, Lord Li'Yieraun's mage." In her mind, an old grizzled sergeant opened the heavy door into a large keep before her. "Oi, who's the' girl?" asked the sergeant. "Got her down at Agnes.' Damn pretty, isn't she?" the officer whose arm she held replied. Reverend Wright continued,"...Knowing the vindicator despised necromancers and the death god they worship, Lord Li'Yieraun and Lord Avengene realized they had something in common and struck up a fine alliance. Li 'Yeiraun's mage and our priests were responsible for vanquishing the threat of the giants. Our ally Lord Li 'Yeiraun has also sent us stonemasons from the south to help with our massive rebuilding effort. Why I believe your father has one employed at keep Norwit. I am sure that one day we will catch up with Red Jack again. These other posters are of some of Jack's wicked crewmen, Arzeal, Drake, Brackston, Pike, and Skitch are officers, and some of these others are just notable pillagers." Bellany put her hand over her mouth as she stared at the poster depicting Pike. She had seen that very same Norseman in her daydreams. Somehow it was all real; her dreams were memories. "Goodness that one looks like he could tear a woman limb from limb," Bellany said to disguise her reaction. "I have no doubt he could; yet these pirates are as cowardly as they are dangerous. When the heat of the law became too great for Captain Red Jack down along the Augustana River southwest of Avengene, he fled east along the river and then he sailed north through the elven forest and began terrorizing the eastern provinces of Avengene. He was most active last year when the forces of the vindicator had their hands full with the giants and orcs, but even now he is a notorious raider. We don't know when he will strike next," the reverend said gravely. Bellany nodded and began to walk forward, and then near the end of the display she stopped dead again and gaped at a poster. Wanted for the murder of Reverend Evangeline Avengene, Brianna Barter, a.k.a. Valkura. "She looks younger than me, how was it she killed an Avengene? Aren't they battle trained like daddy?" "She was a fell sorceress from a line of witches, and even at the age of fifteen, she bewitched Evangeline and killed him in his bed." Bellany leveled a dubious glare at the Reverend that just about withered him where he stood, "And he was found fully clothed in an unsoiled bed, no doubt." Reverend Wright cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Baron Daelrath and I have shared a few heated words over that one. In any case, daughter, we owe our allegiance to Marquis Avengene. You are to keep your opinion about that young woman to yourself," Lord Norwit said. "Yes father," Bellany said in a stilted tone. "I think it is time we got Bellany home. Thank you for your hospitality Reverend, and my apologies for my daughter's scornful look. I hope you understand she is sensitive about matters surrounding the violation of young women," Baronet Norwit said. Reverend Wright cleared his throat once again, "Of course milord; I understand." ----- That afternoon Bellany had a lute lesson with an old musician who played at the church. She kept the conversation away from religion and tried to learn as much about music as she could in spite of the aches in her sides and her left palm. Her debility made her feel as though her mind were smothered in molasses. Her teacher thought she was "re-learning" her music at an appreciable pace, but she felt like a snail. Something was missing. She felt like such a lump and shooting pains often ruined her best musical efforts in mid song. Her mind somehow lacked the energy to really shine and her loins were driving her batty. That evening in bed Bellany stared up at the ceiling. She had been avoiding thinking about the rogue's gallery at the church and the things she had remembered. It was down right scary. Brianna Barter had seemed so familiar, even the name haunted her. Had she known her? Bellany could not imagine where she might have met her. After all Bellany was only with the orcs for under a year. Perhaps the orcs had taken Brianna too. She was no doubt on the run from the law. Even if Brianna had been a fellow slave, that did not explain Bellany knowing Red Jack and his officers. Bellany groaned. It was the same frustrating game. She had more pieces to the puzzle but they still did not exactly fit together, or did they? If the sorcerer of Mortaebius had nearly destroyed Red Jack she had originally been with Red Jack's men, then what had happened to her when the sorcerer caught her? The boys in her memory had seemed like pirate recruits. Maybe she had been a recruit with them. It just did not make sense. Norwit was too far away from the river for pirates to have taken her. That and she did not know how long ago Red Jack's men had run into the sorcerer. It seemed that if Jack were raiding while the giants were destroying forts in Avengene then he would have been raiding Avengene during the year's period she was a slave to the orcs. She would have to have known Jack after his run-in with the sorcerer, but her memories seemed to say that she had known him before that. Yet that would have to have been before she was abducted by orcs last summer. Bellany's head spun. "Wait a minute," Her writing had been all wrong when she had arrived. She might not be Bellany Norwit, yet she looked like Bellany Norwit and there was and is a holy war between the vindicator and Mortaebius." Bellany decided to forget herself for a moment and just try to put her dreams or memories together to see if they made sense in and of themselves. Her last memories seemed to start with the dreamstone priest and end with Red Jack, why? She could not say. Then after Jack what little bits she remembered did not yet fit together at all. If the priest of Mortaebius had captured her with Jack, and Jack was sent to Turnmoor for execution, what had become of her? Perhaps she was in league with the sorcerer. Had he put her in touch with some secret order working for the church of Mortaebius against the Church of the vindicator? Maybe he had made a deal with Jack. That would explain why Jack started raiding Avengene. In addition it would explain why the things of the vindicator sat so badly with her. There was an internal logic to it, but it did not fit with Bellany's life and abduction by the orcs. The two made sense apart but not together. It was as if she were two people. Or maybe she really was a demoness who had possessed the body of Bellany Norwit. She did not really feel like a demoness, but something about her past and her present just did not jibe. She decided she would just have to wait until she could remember more pieces. For the moment she would try to recuperate. Tomorrow she wanted to learn to take the stairs on her crutches. Ideally she wanted to do away with the crutches entirely but she was so weak and the damage seemed to have affected more than her skin, muscles and bone. Her internal organs were not right; although the spot near her heart seemed to be healed. Perhaps her heart and lungs were doing better than the rest of her, just as her eyes were. The next day Bellany learned to negotiate stairs. She rose very early and dressed in a pastel pink dress, one of the few outfits that had been altered to fit her. Most of her clothes were too tight in the bust. Her first flight of stairs consisted of three steps that lead from the second floor of the manor house where her room was to the curtain wall around the courtyard. She took them slowly without mishap and then She hobbled along on the wall to a good spot and sat between two of the crenellations. Bellany waved down to the men assembled for weapons practice, "Hi Daddy, hello Sergeant Lime and everyone." The men looked up at her. A herd of tiny tingles tickled her nose and ran down her spine. "It can't be normal for a woman to feel lust like this," Bellany thought to herself. Nevertheless she noted which of the young men seemed to have the strongest reaction. By Wednesday Bellany was getting around pretty well considering her debility. It hurt to move, sometimes things inside her protested, but she found being caged in her room intolerable. She felt a need in her loins that was so strong it was driving her right out of her mind. Her skin was clearing but at a snail's pace. It was still noticeably yellow and blue. Her legs had become only a little stronger but since her left arm was a wreck, the added strength was very welcome. Her left crutch had never done much more than steady her. Her left arm was so damaged she was glad it was not a delicate internal organ. The palm of her left hand still ached dully as if it were dead. At first she explored the manor, then she began to explore the courtyard and some of the side buildings, the brewhouse, the bakehouse, the granary, the smithy, the servant's quarters and the barracks. The reactions she got from the men were always the same. They noticed her even in her current condition, but none of them was willing to touch her with a ten-foot pole. Her daddy had schooled them well. --------------- This morning she had decided to take a look at the stables or the carriage house as her mother called it. The pungent aroma of horse manure assaulted her nostrils as she entered. She recognized one of the young men from the garrison hard at work mucking out a stall. "Dorety!" "The young man bowed. Good morning Lady Bellany." It seemed after he greeted her that he could only look at her feet. Bellany bent at the waist and lowered herself down her right crutch a ways. From there she looked up into the young man's face and waved with one of her fingers. Dorety grinned, "Uh, Lady Bellany, what are ye doing down there?" "My feet seemed to be the only thing you'd look at," Bellany said. "Er because I'm just a commoner, ma'am," Dorety said. "Before my abduction, was I just a little high and haughty?" Bellany asked. "Er yes ma'am; in a manner of speakin' you were," Dorety affirmed. "I suppose I had a chaste reputation to uphold, moral purity, a lady's pride and all that," Bellany said. "Yes ma'am," Dorety said. "It's a shame Dorety but let's be realistic, after a hundred orcs bed a woman by force -chaste reputation gone, moral purity gone, pride gone. It is just Bellany now. Currently people only call me 'Lady' because my father is a baronet. Before they had more traditional reasons," Bellany said. "Ya took a fall," Dorety said. "I took a hard fall. Now I'm Lady Damaged Goods. I doubt any nobleman would seriously consider marrying me. It would be hard on a nobleman's pride. For one thing he would think he was getting seconds after an orc tribe, and for another his prospects of getting children if a year of orcs produced none would be nill. Lady Damaged Goods is barren and has been ill used." Bellany remained bent over and realized she was not going to be able to haul herself up her crutch as easily as she had lowered herself down. Dorety finished the stall he was working on and opened the next one. She wanted to turn to look at Dorety in his new location but instead she merely craned her neck and looked behind her. The black stallion in the newly opened stall trumpeted, lipped the air, surged forward and nipped Bellany on the rump. "Ouch!" Bellany squealed as she looked up behind her and inadvertently gazed between the forelegs of the prancing stallion. She caught a glimpse of his underside and the enormous hose that was drawing down from its sheath in front of a pair of peach-sized balls. Heat radiated through her. She had been working to see a man's equipment for several days and had gotten absolutely nowhere. What she had just seen was ponderously male. It made her grimace as if one of her pains had struck her. Dorety was trying his darndest not to laugh as he turned the horse and half dragged him into the finished stall. Bellany stared open-mouthed at the animal, fully realizing the significance of the phrase, "Hung like a stallion." Dorety got the horse in the stall but he started laughing and try as he might he could not stop. "I am so sorry HAHAHUHAA, Lady Belan-HEHEHAHAAW, Starstruck isn't usually a biter. He only nips mares in season before he studs'em. HEHEHE I think he's in love! HAAWHAHAHEHE!" "First orcs, and now the only male that appreciates me nips and clops around on hooves?" Bellany groaned in exasperation. "I've taken a fall alright. Just then one of her pains did hit her and she doubled over all the more and screwed up her face against it." Sorry Lady, I should have known bein' bent over was going to hurt you. Dorety got his laughter under control. "Here, let me help you up." "Thank you," Bellany said, pulling on the young man's lust as he pulled her up. "Oooooo, you are a pretty Lady Belly; you really grew up nice while ye were a slave girl. I'd be havin' about the same reaction as Starstruck right now except bein' a man I'm smart enough ta know Lord Norwit would flay me alive even if he caught me with his new un-chaste-ed daughter. You may know your reputation is shot, but I get the feeling your daddy thinks people ought not to count the orcs again' you since it wasn't yer fault for bein' abducted. I guess that means ye've got the worst of both worlds." "Oh wonderful! It just isn't fair," Bellany said. "Sometimes things in life just go from bad to worse, Lady," Dorety agreed. Bellany swore like a pirate in her mind as she crossed Dorety off her short list. She was going to go mad for sure and Dorety had been the last man on her short list. She had already tried the mason from Li'Yeiraun, and several boys from the garrison. There had to be some fool man at Keep Norwit who would bed her now and think about the consequences later. Bellany grimaced. Was it really fair for her to seduce someone because she was crazy for a man? She was not thinking straight. All she would get was a moment's pleasure, but any man she bedded was risking his life. Yet, something was gnawing at her memory, something very important. Bellany wandered to the bake house. Chef Dower was a middle-aged man who, along with his wife, saw to all of the cooking at Keep Norwit. He liked bread making best. "Good day, Chef Dower. Did I ever cook before the accident?" Bellany asked. "Mmmph, no milady, methinks you spent most of yer time at the church with your mother," Dower said. "I'm bored. Would you teach me how you make bread today?" Bellany asked. "Aye, if ya like. If ye've got the stamina fer it, by the end of the day perhaps ye'll be learned enough to make the muffins for yer family's dinner. Wash up yer hands and then we'll get to work," Dower said. Bellany passed the day learning to make bread and trying not to think about where she was going to find a man to bed her. At dinner that night, Chef Dower made an announcement. "Lady Bellany was bored today and wanted to learn to make bread. I taught her a few things and she picked 'em right up. By the end of the day she was doing so well, she made tonight's muffins. I dare say I figured I'd have to walk her through it, but I hardly needed to do a thing." The chef bowed and the maids served dinner. "I had no idea you were interested in cooking, Bellany. I thought you felt domestic chores were beneath you." Lady Norwit said. Bellany shrugged. "There is art to cooking, I think, mother. Besides, I don't imagine I'll be marrying a baron anymore. I might need to have some skills." Eleanor Norwit looked distinctly uncomfortable for a moment, "I suppose it would not hurt. You did very well, honey. The muffins are delicious." "Thank you mother," Bellany said. Bellany was confined to Keep Norwit by her infirmity. Her life felt so dreary. She was learning music, and she spent some of her afternoons baking bread with Chef Dower. Sometimes her innards kept her twitching around in pain for hours and she did nothing at all. Lately those times seemed to come more often. She had tried to stop attempting to seduce men but had not entirely succeeded, but where she had failed, they had passed with flying colors. None of them would get close. The men her father kept at his keep were loyal to him to a fault. The ache between her legs was consuming, and no matter how many times she teased herself off with her fingers, her need did not diminish one whit. If anything, it grew stronger. Early Saturday night she tossed uncomfortably in bed more asleep than awake. She flashed back into the dreamy realm of memory. She was dancing in front of a hoard of pirates. Lust was buzzing through her body like a swarm of crazed honeybees. Her need was so deep, so powerful. The pirates had aroused her to a fever pitch. Bellany woke with a start. Her body was bathed in sweat. The screaming need she felt in her loins was driving her mad. ---- In a large master suite nearby, Lord Darl Norwit settled into bed next to his wife, "Did you talk to Grace today Eleanor?" "Yes, dear. It was not good news. Bellany has more blood in her urine. It's been getting worse ever since church or before. I guess getting her back to what had been her joy has been a disaster. She remembered nothing and snapped at the reverend. I know being cooped up in her bedroom drives her to distraction, but it seems all this moving around has raised her spirits but damaged her within. I am not sure what to do, Darl," Eleanor said. Darl shook his head, "I am sorry Bellany snapped at the reverend. The case of Brianna Barter must have struck a chord after the abuse she suffered at the hands of the orcs. I feel badly about it since arguing with Baron Dealrath on the subject. The Avengenes have forbidden me to deviate from their official story, but there were... rumors about Evangeline's excesses for years before he died. I should have done more to follow up on them. What little checking I did do never turned up any hard evidence. There was a young woman named Brenda Dawes who went to the trouble of seeking an audience, but she was crippled in a bad fall shortly before she was to appear and had to cancel her appointment." "Darl, don't agonize over Evangeline. Whatever his sins, he has passed on and your allegiance is to Avengene. It is no wonder Bellany snapped at Reverend Wright after her ordeal with the orcs and what with her health slipping so dangerously. Grace said she was passing an alarming amount of blood in her urine. I am very worried," Eleanor said. "It is horrible she is getting worse after she has already suffered so much, but we knew it might happen. Leech Fraksen feared extensive internal damage. The strange thing is that sergeant Lime came to me with a disturbing report about Bellany today. I could hardly believe it, but after questioning the men involved and recalling the way I saw her look at the men as she watched them practice, I realized it must be true," Darl Norwit said. "What is it, dear?" Eleanor inquired pensively. "Bellany has been trying to get friendly with some of my men," Darl said. "No," Eleanor replied incredulously. Baronet Norwit nodded, "I board my finest here at the keep, and they watch out for each other. They all had essentially the same concern. They would not have said anything but they were worried that Bellany has become a beautiful young woman and that eventually one of them might slip up. The others would feel as though they were partially responsible for the man's hanging if they had failed to report the earlier incidents to their superiors. Thankfully she has done nothing particularly untoward, just leading remarks and meaningful expressions, but when five men come forward, I am inclined to believe them." "I cannot believe that as bruised as she is she can still be overcome with desire." Eleanor shook her head. Yet, five of your handpicked men would not lie about such a thing. I do not know what the orcs did to her, but perhaps she associates sex with survival." Darl cleared his throat. "Yes I could see how that might happen since she was a slave of the orcs." "Darl, whether it upsets her or not, I think you had better take her crutches. She needs to recover, and this mischief she has been getting into has not been helping," Eleanor said. Darl nodded, "I will pick them up when I visit her in the morning." "Thank you dear. I think it's the right thing to do," Eleanor said. ------ Bellany's sleep was fitful; pain did not allow her to rest easy, but the pain was not as bad as the hunger. She was positively ravenous for a man and she did not understand why but her lust was even harder to sleep with than the pain. While Bellany looked at the ceiling, her fingers strayed to caress her breasts and to stroke her mound. She was afraid. Whether she liked to admit it or not, she was well aware of the increasing blood in her urine and of the fact that her kidneys seemed to be falling apart. The increasing pain she felt from some of her internal organs scared her. She might not be able to move much longer. If a kidney failed, she could be bedridden again or much, much worse. She plunged a finger into her heat. She needed a man but her mobility was limited to the keep and might be even more severely limited by her condition if she got any worse. When she realized she was fantasizing about hoards of pirates, she stopped herself. "I really should have been romanticizing about the perfect man to bed and eventually marry," she though. A second finger slid into her heat to join the first. Bellany looked out the window at the blackness. "He would be sweet, strong, and somehow noble but not necessarily in the sense of being an aristocrat, and he'd have to be fearless or foolhardy, or down right dim-witted since daddy would hang him high if he bedded me. There I go ruining my perfect man," Bellany groaned. She slipped a third finger in to join the other two. Maybe he could be a high priest or a mage or someone with healing powers. I am sure there are plenty mages and high priests running around Keep Norwit at this hour," Bellany sighed. She had hit rock bottom. She was dieing and there was not a soul out there who could help her. Maybe she could not prevent her death, but she needed a man, an orc or even the troll shaman from her dreams. She was so desperate she did not even care. She had to have someone before she died or she would take her own life to stop the wicked gnawing of her lust. The darkness of the heavens mirrored her fait. A cool breath of wind shifted Bellany's hair. She smiled, her eyes wet with tears. The clouds had shifted and between them shown a single bright star. A fourth finger deliberately stretched her wider. She realized who her man must be. She would go to him tonight or die trying. The story continues in [Rapina]053 Summertime copyright 2001-2002 by Rapina