Ensharia was tortured the day after. And the day after that. After a while she almost grew accustomed to it, which was disheartening in its own way. Paladins were trained to resist interrogation, however, and she found herself kept calm and solid by the very same breathing techniques and mental dissassociations she’d spent so long accruing all those years ago in training.

It helped, she knew, that despite the sheer brutality inherent to any act of torture, Ensharia’s body had not been broken or crippled in any way that surpassed its ability to recover.

She’d been confused by that, at first, but quickly realised the motive behind it. Unsurprisingly, it was not the General Venka’s mercy.

Ensharia, and captain Swick the Swift, were both to be presented to the Dark Lord himself. Her heart had almost stopped with fright when she’d first realised that, and then her thoughts had further accelerated into a frenzied, panicked mess at the implications. One conclusion was very clear, indeed. She would not be surviving his presence.

They’d kept her body intact because they planned on reanimating her as an undead after whatever interrogation the Dark Lord had planned was finished. Or, possibly, they didn’t plan on getting any information from her at all. Perhaps the sessions of torture were merely a pretence to keep her body enfeebled and weak, to prevent escape without letting her know she’d already been consigned to death. Either way, Ensharia didn’t plan to find out on her enemy’s terms.

She’d not been sure how long it would take for the group to reach their destination, but it couldn’t have been long. Her days were numbered, and with no way of knowing what that number was, Ensharia had thought quickly. Gathering every scrap of knowledge she could, scrutinising General Venka’s entire convoy for whatever weaknesses might be exploited.

It was yet another mark in the inscrutable commander’s favour that she managed to find so little.

Ensharia turned quickly to Swick, asking the man about whether his magic might manage the deed. His response was pained and bitter.

“Not a chance.” He grunted. “I can’t translocate without bringing whatever I’m touching with me.”

She frowned at that, recalling the way he’d seemed always to step back from an enemy before using his power.

“Including the slaves bound to us?”

“Including them.” He confirmed. “And before you suggest it, I can’t just bring them along with us. The distance I can manage is limited enough usually, a quarter of a mile on a good day. It drops, and the fatigue of reaching it rises, as I need to carry more and more mass along on the journey. I also can’t travel to any place I haven’t splattered with my blood either.”

Ensharia glanced back down the row of their fellow prisoners. They weren’t all bound together, such a thing would be inconvenient, rather they’d been separated into several dozen rows of perhaps a hundred or so. One hundred people was one hundred times the captain’s own mass already, one hundred orcs, though, as so many of the prisoners seemed to be…She could imagine the strain it would impart.

“What’s the largest thing you could bring?” She asked, considering a way they might free themselves from the rest and translocate away once the connection was broken. Swick just sighed.

“Something small, I’m afraid. A suit of armour, a young child. Not an adult, definitely not one of your…Size. Sorry.”

It was almost funny that he thought she’d be bothered by a perceived slight against her figure or weight. Almost. But nothing could have truly amused Ensharia in such a time, not if every fool in the world had tried at once. Perhaps she’d have cracked a smile if one of them had broken off her chains and doubled Swick’s powers, first.

She took a mental step back from her current predicament, assessing her situation in more general terms. What did she know of Venka? Of his army, his plans, his methods? Reassuringly, quite a bit.

The man’s plan was to link up with another, larger force of orcs in order to prepare a besieging army with which to attack Kaltan. Such tactics were commonplace among human forces; it was, after all, far easier to send ten forces of a thousand through land than one force of ten thousand. What was exceptional was the fact that Venka dared to do it with orcs.

But then, Venka had done so much else with the creatures. Ensharia had been studying the hierarchy of his army, and everything she learned just left it ever more impressive in her mind.

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Hierarchy was the secret at the centre of everything, a strict and irresistible hierarchy. Rather than valuing strength, as many Generals did in their men, or wits and intellect, as most did in their bannermen and lords, Venka’s soldiers seemed to gain promotion and status based on nothing more complex than good behaviour. Good behaviour. It was like the man was training dogs, rather than thinking people. Ensharia had seen the results clear enough.

At the bottom of his ranks were the slave-orcs, almost all of which were newly captured and newly conscripted into the forces. At the top were those that had learned to navigate Venka’s preferences of manners and etiquette, most commonly the orcs which had been among his men for longest.

It was one of the former kind, not the latter, that Ensharia headed to next.

Garutan was sitting down as Ensharia approached him, one who had an appreciation for taking his life slowly, she had learned. The great orc stood almost a head taller than even most of his kin, and had perhaps enough bodily mass in bone and musculature that even she might have felt its resistance were she to try moving him. He looked up at her approach, face splitting into a broad smile the way it always did when she came to speak.

“Enshar!” He grinned. Ensharia smiled back.

Garutan had been the orc responsible for handing her the flower she now wore in her mottled hair, and she’d spent no small stretch of time speaking with him over the past days. At first she’d thought him to be a savage animal. That perception had not long survived knowing Garutan.

He was not an animal, not savage, and certainly not a cruel beast as many of the stories might have claimed. True, he was not as clever as a human, but that was hardly the orc’s own fault. He’d brought Ensharia the flower because he’d thought she looked pretty and nice, and having known him for just a few more days, Ensharia had found him to be simply one of the sweetest people she’d ever met. Less a giant animal, and more a giant, loving little boy.

“How are things going?” She asked, taking her own seat. Garutan answered as eagerly as ever, seeming thrilled just to have had the question posed to him. He was always one to enjoy talking and sharing, but more than that, Ensharia had found, he enjoyed having an interest taken in him.

Garutan excitedly talked about the sights he’d seen, mostly clouds and mountains, but occasionally veering into a revelation of curious behaviour from his fellow slaves or guarding soldiers. Ensharia listened, committing it all to memory as usual, and interrupted only as a harsh voice called the orc off to continue his work elsewhere.

“Sorry Ensha.” He grumbled, storming off with his misery dripping from him. It made Ensharia’s guts twist to behold. She watched him leave until the rattling of shackles and scraping of binds told her Swick was coming back to sit beside her.

The pirate had changed, over the days, and not for the better. Face infested by scraggly, messy stubble, eyes sunken ever deeper into his sockets. He had looked half corpse before, and since made the transition farther to at least three quarters. She felt nothing but pity as she gazed upon him.

“I’m going to die here.” He grunted, sounding like a man holding his own blood-slick entrails in the midst of a battle. “I killed my men, and now I’m going to get myself killed right alongside them.”

“Don’t say that.” Ensharia growled, speaking with a venom that was perhaps disproportionate to his words. Whenever he spoke of such things, it made her think of them. Squeezed those last embers of hope in her mind almost to the limit.

“Have you come up with any plans?” The pirate countered, looking at her with a blend of emotion Ensharia couldn’t quite identify. It was hard to be truthful, but she forced herself to.

“Not yet, but even if I think of nothing at all we still have hope. We’ll be heading to Kaltan soon, yes?”

The pirate eyed her, frowning, then nodding.

“...Yes.” He conceded. “You say that as if it changes everything.”

“It does.” Ensharia grinned. “Silenos and the others will be heading to it, as well. Arion came to try and rescue us while you were unconscious, and I told him about what we learned of the SIlhouette, that they can find a way of leaving the Dark Lord’s lands there. If they end up there, they’ll doubtless find out about the city’s conflict with the Dark Lord and be roped into helping defend it, or even find out Venka himself is marching on it and stay deliberately to wait for us.”

“How will they know we’d still be with him?” The pirate challenged. Ensharia felt a smile grow, a genuine one for the first time in days.

“Simple calculation, if Venka is there within the timeframe he’ll arrive in, then he will have had to forego dropping us off with the Dark Lord or any other forts. Otherwise…Well, we’d be there already. If they have access to maps or decent scouting, they’ll draw the same conclusion. And if we can’t be brought to a powerful Necromancer, we’ll be kept alive to ensure we’re reanimated in as fresh a state as possible, given our combat power and magic.”

Swick considered her words with slow, subtle nods. Ensharia had expected- or hoped- to see some new flash of resolve across his features as she explained her optimism. That didn’t happen, but there certainly was a change behind those glassy eyes. It was an unnerving one, rather than reassuring. Gnawing at her confidence and leaving her uncertain.

“What are you thinking?” She challenged, finding the ludicrous question escaping her out of sheer, sudden desperation.

Swick eyed her levelly.

.”I’m thinking that I’m sorry.” He replied, as if he were a headsman, and she the condemned criminal. Swick turned away from Ensharia before she could process his words, heading to an orc. One of the guards, not the slaves.

“I have information your General might be interested in hearing.” He told it, speaking with that loud, confident voice that best maximised the odds of being understood by their kind. “Secrets, from traitors, and enemy plans. Take me to him and I can share it.”

The orc took its time in processing Swick’s words, but not as much of it as Ensharia did. By the time she’d truly realised what was happening, that she had been betrayed, the pirate had already been unbound from the other slaves, firmly grabbed by both arms and hauled away to speak with the General.

Leaving her alone once more.