His head throbbed with a dull ache, partly from the kick he'd taken, and partly from thirst. His captors, who seemed to suffer no such discomfort, pushed them onward at a fast pace, weaving through the thickets, far from the river and any familiar territory. His disorientation was compounded by the weighted net wrapped around his upper body. Darma's presence was little comfort. She limped on her injured leg, her restless eyes surveying their surroundings. She showed no sign that anything more than a hunter-prey relationship bound them. Their shackles were connected by a rope, the front part of which was wrapped around the cleaver-wielder's waist, and the back part by the treacherous Net-wielder, whose actions had so unfortunately turned the tide of their recent skirmish. The leader of the band shuffled diagonally, behind their left shoulder, amusing himself by flicking small pebbles with his stolen whip. Dorky could have sworn he was barely restraining himself from flogging someone with it. Stealing glances at that terrible face, with its unusually visible inner turmoil, he swore to avoid representatives of this terrifying and repulsive race like the plague. They possessed enough intellect to understand the effect their vile behavior had on others, yet they consciously chose monstrousness. They devoured the raw flesh of corpses. They reveled in finishing off the wounded. Perhaps the gods had decided to curse them with such a nature. It was hard to comprehend, especially coupled with their fondness for laughter and some clownish form of humor. In addition, the grey-haired leader had displayed chilling magical abilities, which were as rare as albinism among humans and treated with great reservation, if not open hostility. The repetitive steps of this journey passed quickly, but the accompanying rush of thoughts and persistent observation did not help him unravel this enigma. The kobolds did not speak to each other, limiting themselves to grunts and groans.

  Finally, they emerged from the densely overgrown terrain and stood on a small rise, marked by a staked pole with a goat's skull impaled upon it. Below, as far as the eye could see, stretched a plain whose dry, cracked earth vanished in gusts of hot wind. "These are no longer your lands, huh? These are the lands of the Krush clan." The old man said viciously, accentuating his words strangely. Darma narrowed her eyes and looked at him questioningly, but he was in no hurry to offer further explanations. He calmly met her gaze, smacking his lips and moving his jaw from side to side. He taunted the Orc-woman until her anger returned, so she wrinkled her nose and looked away. The kobolds laughed ominously.

  The next day, famished and thirsty after a night spent lying on bare ground, they trudged through the wasteland again. Sometimes they stopped to let a wind-blown, rolling tumbleweed of thorny branches pass. The sun quickly heated the air, and the continued journey became an unbearable torture. Dorky stared at the large, squawking birds circling in the sky. The ground and the sky swapped places, and he crashed to the earth, dragging his escort and Darma with him. The old man approached him and patted his cheek. He looked preoccupied. "You can't die here, pink-skin," he said in his unaccustomed-to-conversation voice. "You have to keep going. Before the sun. Midday. We will be at the market." Dorky, whose body was a bundle of pain from all the blows of recent days, groaned, rolled onto all fours, and coughed briefly, then shakily stood up. His head was the most affected. It ached with radiating pain, spreading to his eye sockets, temples, and ears. He spat, but thirst had thickened his saliva so much that he only dirtied his chin with bits of indistinct foam. He thought that in a little while, he would lose consciousness and probably not wake up. Glancing around, he met the Orc-woman's gaze. Behind the indifferent facade of her black eyes, he perceived something more within, which gave him the impetus not to give up yet. He blinked suddenly, feeling something hot beneath his eyelids. Not knowing any better, he allowed himself to be pulled further.

  The place, called a market by the old kobold, was in fact a packed-earth floor, trampled flat by dozens of feet, inside a spacious tent made of white and cream hides stretched on stands. The air was quite stuffy and stagnant, but the temperature inside was much more livable than outside. Dorky was deadly tired, but when they were served a flat, greasy flour cake and a ladle of dirty, stale water, he accepted them gratefully and even began to curiously examine his surroundings. Himself and Darma had survived, and at that moment, that was all that mattered. They were in an Orc camp, but of a different clan and kind. They had darker, brownish skin. Everyone wore strange, dyed hairstyles, consisting of hair either fixed upright, or tied into messy, asymmetrical braids, and in places their dark, smooth skulls gleamed, shaved to bare skin. Most of the guardswomen he observed had some kind of scars on their faces and delighted in piercings. The wasteland clan was wild and warlike, and the Orc-women addressed each other in an almost hostile tone, constantly challenging one another. They treated the kobolds neutrally. Darma, seeing this, shook her head briefly and exhaled. The boy understood that something here was not as she had imagined. Their contemplation was interrupted by the arrival of the Tribe Elder.

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  "Garba!" The old sorcerer addressed her humbly, theatrically shielding the kneeling prisoners with his robe. "Thaddeus," the Orc-woman replied, "what do you have for us this time?" "Exceptional goods." The kobold praised. Garba glanced at the boy and smiled uglily. Then she shifted her gaze to Darma, and her eyes widened. She bowed her head to the seller. "Three trinkets for the human and five for the green one." "Five for the human and ten for the green one." "That makes eleven." "Twelve." "Eleven." She snarled, "and don't test my patience, or I'll gouge out your eyes and break your legs." Thaddeus had no intention of bargaining further. He and Garba spat on their hands and sealed the deal.

  Darma winced with disgust. Dorky made a mental note to ask her, if they survived this adventure, why the Orc-women here had a different approach to kobolds than the Uurb clan-members. Friendship with this race did not bode well for their current owners and the place they found themselves in. He was terribly tired and just wanted to remain motionless, but they were quickly given another ladle of water, put on their feet, and dragged further through a series of wider and narrower corridors and chambers, forming a giant vessel-like system of interconnected tents. In some rooms, there was a lot of space, hearths roared, and even the sounds of a forge echoed. Here and there, he saw animal pens. The complex was large, and walking through it at the imposed pace, pulled by the rope, he completely lost his bearings. Through the discomfort and fear, a kind of excitement also germinated, for he hadn't expected to ever see something like this.

  The spaces where the slaves were held were dug into the ground. From the four pits, covered by heavy wooden grates, came the stench of excrement and unwashed bodies, and even some monstrous musky odor of a wild beast. Between the pits ran two causeways, several feet wide, made of hardened earth, dividing the room into four uneven parts. A primitive structure with a hooked chain rose to the ceiling, reminding Dorky of the bucket system for water he had observed by the Uurb clan's river. Two imposing guardswomen operated it laboriously with a crank. First, one grate was lifted, and Darma, untied, was unceremoniously pushed inside and locked in. Next in line was the boy. "Are you alright?" he asked, but didn't get a chance to receive an answer. "No talking, worms!" thundered a guardswoman. "Or you'll drink our piss!" echoed the second. Dorky looked at their bared fangs and joyful eyes as they stood on the causeway and looked down at them. The situation was far from ideal, and nothing gave him hope for escape. He looked around his cell, large and wide. In a distant corner was something like a latrine, a nasty hole in the ground that he was afraid to approach. He saw no tools here and realized that the other prisoners had probably dug it with their hands. Where he stood, food was probably dumped, as the walls were somewhat shiny, as if from grease or sauce. Along the far walls, sleeping niches were carved into the clay, and in one place, even a small bench. It was pleasantly cool, but it stank so much that his nose burned. He sat down on the bench and heard a familiar voice: "I'm alright, Little Fox." They ignored the barking of the guardswomen, who, after a moment, seeing that they weren't continuing their conversation, fell silent and disappeared from their sight. The boy, having nothing better to do, lay down and fell into a shallow, uneasy sleep.

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