I was jolted awake by a boot to the ribs.

Somehow, I managed to get some fitful sleep in the aftermath of the caravan ambush. It didn’t feel like more than a handful of hours. I was still exhausted.

Looking up from where I had been slumped over, I finally managed to get a good look at the people that had attacked the caravan last night.

Tall, was my first impression. I wasn’t a short man by any measure, but this man (?) towered over me by at least a foot. He was visibly stooping over in the cramped confines of the wagon. Lithely muscled, pale-skinned and completely bald, they were wearing a combination of rough leather armor and simple leather clothing, all a uniform brown. One of the most striking things about them had to be the mask. They had a finely detailed wooden mask covering their face, carved into the shape of a wolf's head. I could still see his eyes though, an intimidating amber, through the appropriately placed holes. However, what caught my attention the most were the ears.

They were long, extending perhaps six inches from their head and pointed, in an upwards manner.

Catching sight of them, I wasn’t as surprised as I perhaps should have been. Obviously, of course, the murderous raiders that killed over a dozen people were some kind of fantasy elf.

Booting me in the ribs again, the elf shocked me out of the stupor I had fallen into staring at him. This time he also barked something at me, obviously a command of some kind. Realizing that the elf had untied and ungagged me at some point, most likely before he woke me up, I raised my hands in a plaintive manner and tried to talk to him.

“Look man, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say to me,” I said slowly, even though I realized he most likely didn’t understand me any more than I did him. Hopefully, the tone at least would tell him I didn’t intend to try and fight him. Right now, at least.

Even though I couldn’t see his face under his mask, I could still tell that the elf was still surprised by what he had heard. He stared at me blankly for a few seconds before a small laugh escaped him. That small laugh quickly escalated though, as before long the elf was veritably howling in laughter, even slapping his right thigh for good measure.

I didn’t understand what was so funny, and I didn’t get a chance to. Darting a hand my way, the elf grabbed my right forearm in an iron grip and yanked me to my feet roughly. Putting me before him, he jerked the arm he was holding behind me and started to march me forward toward the exit of the wagon.

I yelped like a struck dog from this sudden movement. Before I could even try and say something to the elf, we had reached the exit. Suddenly, a boot struck me in my back with force, launching me out of the wagon.

I landed painfully on my front from the sudden booting I had experienced. Laying there dazed, it felt as if the world had gone white for a moment, preventing me from seeing or hearing anything going on around me.

Out of nowhere, a hand grabbed me by the hair and yanked me to my knees. I grunted from the pain, unable to see from the dust that had gotten into my face from the throw. I could hear an excited chattering coming from what must be the elf that had manhandled me, though. He called out, and I could hear some answers from what must be the other raiders.

Rubbing the dust from my eyes, I could finally see what had been going on outside the wagons. Once again, the wagons had created a circle once the raiders had stopped for the night. However, what was happening inside that circle was far different from the near idyllic period piece scene from yesterday.

The elven raiders had brought out all their captives from yesterday and forced them to their knees to sit in a group. For some reason, just like me, everyone had been unbound and ungagged. I could see the woman from last night in that group. Guarding them were four other raiders, nearly identical to the elf that had roughed me up. All of them were bald, all of them had wolf masks on, all of them had amber-colored eyes, and all of them were male. The only difference that could be distinguished between them were the types of leather armor and clothing they wore or didn’t wear, and the different weapons they were holding.

With the limited amount of vision that I had from the elf holding my head tight by my hair, I could see other elves ransacking the other wagons. They were tossing things out of the wagon that they didn’t want or need or could sell I suppose, and keeping what they wanted.

At the words of the elf holding me, I could see some of the elves going through the wagons look our way. Stopping what they were doing, three of them wandered over in our direction, curious about whatever my captor was saying to them.

When they had reached us, the elf holding me seemed to start explaining something to the others, ending in another laugh. Whatever he was saying to them must have made them as shocked as he had been earlier, because the elven raiders looked at each other in a dumbfounded manner before erupting into laughter. The elf holding me by my hair shook me like a dog, as if to punctuate the joke.

Wrenching me back to my feet by my hair, I was shoved into the group of other survivors and down to my knees. Looking around at the others, I could see that they were mostly women, with only a few other men. I suppose that most of the men had been killed in the fighting.

A shout directed my attention to the front of the group. Another elf, different from the others was standing in front of our group, holding a spear planted firmly in the dirt. Looking closely, I could see that this elf had slightly higher quality gear than the others, with a distinct red marking on his mask’s left cheek. A single claw mark.

Now that he had the group's attention, the presumed leader began speaking to the group in the disturbing voice that I had noticed last night. He explained something to them in a matter-of-fact manner in short sentences. He clearly didn’t care what the group thought of what he was saying, because whatever he was saying caused some of the women to start crying. He just talked over them until he was finished.

Something he had said must have frightened one of the surviving men past the point of reason, as with a shout he surged up and ran out of the circle of survivors. Not looking back once, he made a break for it towards one of the gaps between wagons. Surprisingly, the guards were fairly nonchalant about this and didn’t make any effort to chase him.

The elven leader laughed and took a stance. Hauling the massive spear he had been holding above his shoulder, the elf looked more like an Olympic javelin thrower than a bandit. The spear took on a slight red glow somehow, and with a shout the leader threw the spear with a crack of air, faster than I could see.

Straight through the fleeing man.

With the momentum of both the spear and the man running, the spear ended up pinning the man through the chest to the ground. The man gave a short, weak scream before trying to scrabble at the instrument of his death lodged in him.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Then he stopped.

This caused more than a little bit of crying and wailing from the group of survivors, particularly from one older woman that bore a resemblance to the now-dead man.

I understood now why the group had been untied. It was so that he could frighten us so badly that he could make an example out of someone for the cost of disobedience. And looking at the cruel delight I could see in his amber eyes, I could take a guess as to why he had ungagged everyone.

He liked the screams.

The leader stood by patiently as the sobs of the group began to quiet down, and then motioned to a group of elves that had been standing off to the side. As one, they began to move in towards the group while at the same time the guards pressed in tighter, as if to remind everyone of the consequences of disobedience.

The extra elves and the guards began to separate out the group and rebind and gag the group of survivors. I was singled out by who I could tell was the same elf that had laughed at me earlier. He bound and gagged me before mockingly patting me on the cheek and laughing once more.

After that, all of the survivors including myself were hauled up over the shoulders of individual elves, one on each shoulder as if we weighed no more than a five-pound sack of potatoes. Instead of taking us back to individual wagons like we had been in, the elves took us to one of the wagons that they had cleaned out. Tossing us in, they didn’t even tie us to posts on the walls like I had been earlier.

Nobody really struggled anymore, we had all been disabused of the notion of resistance.

I struggled my way into sitting up against the wall of the wagon before trying to take a better look around the wagon at the survivors. Now that I could concentrate on it, I could tell that there were ten women and four men, not including me. Fifteen people, cramped together like rats in one small wagon.

The others were able to really take note of my presence now as well, and they clearly didn’t care that much for me. They congregated into groups away from me as best they could, eyeing me suspiciously. I was an outsider after all. Not too long ago I had been a prisoner of their own, some stranger one of their guards had pulled in from nowhere. The only person that didn’t seem to care all that much about my presence was the woman that had shared a wagon with me last night. Instead, she just stared off into space mindlessly, unable to care for the world around her and out of tears.

The elven raiders snapped the small wooden gate at the back of the wagon closed, leaving us to an uncertain fate.

……………………………………...

After a while, the caravan started moving again. I could hear the raiders out there, directing the horses.

As the caravan got underway, I started to wonder what these murderous assholes wanted with us. Objectively, I could understand why someone would raid a caravan, even if I found it reprehensible. Some people didn’t care about what happened to others, they just wanted their stuff. But why had they taken prisoners? Were they intending to ransom us off to some presumed human authority? Eyeing the number of female captives with me, I tried not to think of why the raiders could want them.

I supposed eventually I would find out why they’d taken us.

The day passed slowly for us survivors. The only thing of note was that one of the men was unable to help himself anymore and shit his pants. I tried not to hold it against him, even if it caused the wagon to stink.

There was nothing for us to do, no conversation to be had with these gags in. All they could do was huddle together in search of a minuscule amount of comfort. All I could do was stare off into space and think about what was going to happen to me next.

Eventually, night came, and the caravan didn’t stop this time. The raiders drove through the night.

……………………………………...

The next morning, I woke to shouting.

One of the surviving men was being dragged out of the wagon by one of the raiders by his still-bound feet. The man was trying to struggle away from the elf, but he was clearly no match for the strength of the elf. As he passed me, I could see that it was the man that had soiled himself.

There was another elf at the entrance of the wagon that was doing the shouting. As the elf and the struggling human got closer to him, both elves grabbed the human man and bodily tossed him outside the wagon.

The elves followed him and from outside came the sound of what was unmistakably a beating. I could hear the sound of fists on flesh, a mix of shouting and laughter from the raiders, and the muffled screams and cries of the man.

Nobody inside the wagon made a sound.

Once the beating was over, the elf that had been shouting earlier appeared at the entrance once more. This time he was clearly addressing the whole group when he began to shout again. I suppose he was telling us to hold it or pay the price.

After that, we were picked up and taken outside once more. This time, the caravan had stopped next to a stream. I suppose this was why they hadn’t stopped last night, they wanted to reach a source of water. One by one we were carried out of the wagon and down to the stream. Once there, they unbound and ungagged us again.

One of the captors barked a command at the group before gesturing to the stream. First, the survivors took great gulps of water, and then they began to do their business.

I followed their lead, making sure I was upstream of everyone else.

When we were done, each of the survivors was given a small loaf of bread and given instructions once more. We ate as quickly as we could, so as not to annoy our captors.

After that, we were bound and gagged once more and tossed back in the wagon. Once there, we were finally able to lay eyes on the man from earlier. He’d been stripped naked and then beaten black, blue, and bloody before being tied up again. Frankly, he’d been beaten so bad I wasn’t sure he was going to survive. They must have broken some ribs, because it was obvious he was having difficulty breathing.

There was nothing any of us could do for him.

The caravan started moving again.

……………………………………...

The man didn’t survive the night.

……………………………………...

This pattern would repeat itself for the next week or so. Honestly, it was hard to keep track of time with the inconsistent way that the raiders drove the caravan.

It was also hard to keep track of time because of how weak everyone was getting. We were being given so little food and water that it was difficult to keep our strength up. Increasingly, I found myself spending more time asleep than I was awake.

But no matter how weak we got, none of us forgot the lesson learned from the now-dead man.

……………………………………...

Eventually, the raiders must have reached where they were intending to go. I was too out of it from weakness to notice initially, but the caravan had been stopped for much longer than usual.

But I noticed when the raiders appeared at the back of the wagon for the final time.

They marched into the wagon and started to grab us one by one before taking us out of the wagon. Even if we had the inclination to struggle against them, we were too weak to do so at this point.

They took us outside before unceremoniously tossing us to the ground in what seemed to be a prepared spot.

Struggling to my knees, I finally got a look at the destination that the raiders had been driving us towards.

It was a farm.