Vashti Valant: Slave of the Goblin

And as for the essentials…Laya drew in a little breath. The attacker who had impressed her in her youth, before forever dousing her self-confidence in her sexual choices by his brutality, had nothing on Akraz the Terrible. The sword of Akraz was mighty indeed.

Indeed.

Laya was so busy staring at his nether region that she paid no attention to the fluttering of his eyelashes.

Too late, she felt a fist encircle her slim wrist in an angry clench.

“What in the name of the Thirteen Hells have you done to me, elf wench?”

Akraz awoke naked, bound and in pain. He reacted out of instinct, grabbing the hand of the captor who bent over him, only to realize that he could not move any farther than that because he had been bound flat on his back. His head swam, which suggested he had been drugged or spelled, or both.

Through the haze of his confusion, though, he clearly recognized the elf beauty. Nemesis. His nemesis.

She looked at him now with the same startled green eyes that she had frozen him with during the heat of their duel. Her helmet had fallen away, revealing the most beautiful, ethereal face he had ever seen in his life. A halo of gold hair surrounded that pale face and two of the largest, deepest green eyes imaginable. There had been no fear in those eyes, only resignation along with the knowledge that he was about to kill her.

Only, he hadn’t been able to kill her. And now he had to pay the price for his folly, for now she had taken him back to her people as a prisoner. Elves could be kind or cold to strangers outside their own kind, with one exception. Akraz had never heard of any elf being kind to a goblin. For that matter, no one was ever kind to a goblin. With good reason—goblins were never kind to others. That was simply the way of things.

The elf maid glanced at where he had grasped her wrist. His own hand strained at the edge of a coiled branch to reach hers.

“Clearly,” she said, “The branches are not tight enough.”

She spoke to the tree in an ancient, musical tongue. The branches coiled tighter around his wrists, yanking his hands further over his head. However, as Akraz had no intention of releasing his grip, her arm was pulled along with his.

She glared at him. “Release my wrist.”

He half snarled, half grinned in response. He knew that with the monstrous, boar-like visage the wizard had endowed him with, the expression would look even more demonic.

She spoke another word. This time, a woody tendril tightened around his neck, choking him. He let go of her hand. Satisfied that she had made her point, she spoke and loosed the neck coil again. However, he noticed with his only speck of triumph in an otherwise humiliating situation, that she took care to step back several steps once she was free. Good. Let her learn she must fear him even if he was a chained captive.

“So. You are awake already,” she said unnecessarily.

Elf and goblin regarded one another. He had the better view, he knew. Looking down at him, she must see the monster that Zathstragomal had made of him. Looking up at her, Akraz could see the template for the feminine form as the gods no doubt intended it to be in the Pure Land Yet To Come. She had taken off her golden armor and unbound her hair. She wore only a yellow tunic, tied up beneath her breasts and at her waist and hips with a gold cord. Her flowing hair, he saw, held exotic tints of pale green among the pale corn silk blonde strands. She still had a smudge of ash on her cheek from the battle, the only sign of her potent warrior side. The reminder that she was as dangerous as she was beautiful should have chilled him. Instead, he found it adorable. Though she might soon make his life a living hell, for now he chose to enjoy simply grazing her beauty with his glance. It was the closest a darksome thing such as he would ever come to paradise.

Yet reality intruded on his ruminations. If the elf warrior maiden kept him alive, she must have a good reason, and not one he would enjoy, Akraz suspected. But what could it be? They would not waste time trying to ransom him. They must know that Zathstragomal would never bother to salvage a warrior who had failed him by allowing himself to be captured.

Information. They must want some information from him about Zathstragomal’s plans for the war. They would torture him endlessly, never believing that Akraz would gladly sell out his hated Master, but knew literally nothing about the war strategy except what Zathstragomal commanded him to do day by day and battle by battle.

The unpleasant thought of Zathstragomal made Akraz think of the brand in his palm. Through the mark, the wizard knew Akraz’s whereabouts at all times. It was one reason Akraz could not simply flee his servitude. Zathstragomal must also be watching him now.

“My Master will know where I am,” Akraz said boldly, for the sake of the unseen ears of the wizard. “He is all powerful, and all knowing. He will soon crush your pathetic band of elf and human worms and become the rightful ruler of this land.”

The elf maiden’s lip curled in a knowing smile. She reached out and turned over Akraz’s left hand, displaying the mark.

“If you mean that he can trace you through his magic in order to rescue you, abandon that hope,” she said. “My magic has already cancelled out his spell. You have no possibility of escape, goblin. Two thousand elven warriors surround this grotto, out of sight behind the trees, with a third aiming their arrows at this tent at all times. Even should you escape your bindings, you cannot escape the archers.”

She leaned forward to gloat in his ear, “Your beloved Master thinks you dead, as do your own troops.”

His heart began to pound. Zathstragomal thought him dead?

I am free! he thought for one insane wild breath of joy. Then he had to laugh at himself, as he yanked uselessly at the helix of wood wrapped around his arms and legs. He was far from free.

“You belong to me, now,” said the elf maiden, echoing his thoughts. “Just as you would take a slave from your battle captives, so I have taken you as my slave. You will be my toy, my pet. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mistress,” he said. Hatred flared to life inside him, a familiar friend.

A frown formed a cute wrinkle on her brow. “I do not wish to be called that.”

“Then how do you wish to be addressed by your slaves?” Akraz could not quite keep the irony out of his voice. He hoped that she would not notice and have him whipped for it. He should be careful until he knew what kind of tortures and punishments the elves used to keep their slaves in line.

She noticed his irony; her frown deepened. However, she did not punish him, or even comment on it. Instead, she said mildly, “You may call me Laya. That is my real name.”

He had to look away from her intense green eyes. Initially, he had congratulated himself on his good fortune in his exchange of masters. It would only be a matter of time before he escaped his bonds and slit her pretty throat. Now he wasn’t sure. She would be harder to deal with than Zathstragomal. She seemed to do something to make his gut churn that made him feel defenseless in a way that Zathstragomal, even on his most vicious days, had never managed.

Laya. Even her name was impossibly beautiful. How could he mangle it with his grotesque, deformed tongue without instantly exposing to her all the impossible dreams she aroused in him? He groaned with the insane urgency of his yearning for her, praying to whatever god would listen that she would not notice the physical symptoms of his distress.

The prisoner groaned in pain, reminding Laya that he had been wounded in the battle. Though he was her enemy and now her slave, she could not bring herself to deliberately let him suffer.