As they watched the two girls taken away by the hated she-orcs, the remaining slave women set up an angry din of protest, shouting and shaking their fists. Behind them, the orcish guards whistled and hooted, twisted their fingers and hands into lewd gestures, or rubbed their crotches, grunting and laughing their approval of this cruel sport.

"No! They are innocent of any wrongdoing! They are all good girls of upstanding morals!" came the clear voice of Gode, a petite, slender woman whose sapphire blue eyes were filled with alarm. Her dark blonde hair was tied back with a scrap of blue material torn from her handkerchief. Her ragged garments fit her far more loosely than they had when she had begun the journey, for back then she had been a plump little wife. Now, like many of the others, she was a sad and haggard widow.

"No? Ooo, did I hear someone say 'no?'" Pausing, Durraiz jerked her head back, her eyes roaming over the row of captives. "Upstanding, wot? Sure they're up standing when any man lifts their skirts and gives it to 'em in the rear! Har har!"

"Ooo!" Bagalaam squealed, wiggling her bony hips. "Ooooo! There's another one of those strife an' troublemakers as wot don't want villains punished! Wot's we to do with 'er?"

"Seize 'er!" Durraiz screamed. "When 'er little white backside gets kissed with the lash, it'll drive all the wickedness out of 'er brains!"

Instantly, the two remaining orcs were upon the young woman, grabbing her, their rough hands pawing over her body. Gode fought against them, but their great strength quickly subdued her. After unchaining the struggling woman from the coffle, they dragged her to the wain.

"You monsters!" Gode screamed as the orcs ripped her dress from her body and flung the tattered shreds to the ground.

"Don't fight us, girlie!" one of the she-beasts hissed as her feral, leering eyes ogled the woman's body. "We're too strong for you!"

Turning the screaming woman to face the wagon wheel, the orcs shoved Gode to her knees. Stretching her arms wide apart, they bound her wrists to spokes on either side of the tall rim. In this position, Gode could not sink back on her haunches and deny her bottom to the hot, stinging touch of the whip. The wheel was covered with foul-smelling dirt and manure, and the hub pushed uncomfortably against Gode's stomach. Looking between the spokes, the frantic woman watched with dread as the nude Ymma was bound to a wheel on the opposite side of the wain. An unconscious Aeffe was revived by a pail of cold water thrown in her face. Snorting and sputtering, soon she, too, was stripped and tied across from Gode.

"Very wicked, lascivious girls must be held up as an example to the others!" Durraiz chortled evilly. She winked at the orc guards as they brandished their spears, goading the two lines of slave women forward to take positions on either side of the wain. Soon the guards had forced the women down on their knees, facing the bare backs of their bound comrades. Many of the women wept and moaned while others shouted in outrage or gazed stoically at the solemn scene. A low moan of grief and sorrow rose up and mingled with the coarse cheers and gibes of the guards, the tumult creating a bizarre cacophony of sound. In the din and confusion, a small, dark-skinned slave boy slipped away unnoticed from the crowd.

"You wanton sluts and runaways, ingrates all of you, watch the torment of these wicked felons and learn from it! Maybe this will put an 'olesome fear and respect into yer schemin' 'earts!" Durraiz cackled, her voice rising and falling in a series of grunts and growls until the laughter culminated in an explosion of hiccupping snorts. Holding her sides at another onrush of mirth, she ordered one of the she-orcs, "Sulmûrz, fetch the switches!"

"Ooh, dearie, it will be me pleasure!" chortled an orc female standing close by. Her dark auburn hair proclaiming her mannish ancestry, she, out of all the other she-orcs, most resembled a woman. Swaggering to the back of the wain, she hesitated a few moments before unlatching the door.

Sulmûrz was highly aroused at the thoughts of the three Rohirric girls who were tied so helplessly to the wagon wheels. Relishing the thoughts of their nude, sensual bodies writhing as the lash struck them, she felt herself becoming wet. She longed to run her hand over her own hairy chestnut-colored crotch and slide a finger or two inside the moist, heated nook.

Once inside the wain, Sulmûrz clenched her thighs close together as though she held a male's engorged member deep inside her. She shut her eyes and moaned at the pleasurable friction caused by the subtle up and down movement of her hips. Sulmûrz closed her eyes and rubbed her thighs together more vigorously in this stimulating manner. "Oooo! Oooo! OOooh!" She gasped and swayed, catching the wall with her hand as she felt a rush of liquid ooze down her legs. "Oooohhh, Master Melkor, awesome and mighty, it makes playing with meself so much better if I pretend that it is Your grand black prick inside of me! Ohhhh," she groaned as another spasm of pleasure racked her body just at the thought of Grond, the majestic black mace of Melkor.

"Sulmûrz, what the hell is taking you so long in there?" Durraiz bellowed angrily.

"Feelin' a mite weak," she called back breathlessly. "Think it's the excitement!"

"Hurry up in there! We don't have all night for this!"

Unlike the other female orcs, who were clad mostly in leather and furs, Sulmûrz was dressed more plainly, or at least more like one of the Southrons or Easterlings. She wore a knee-length scarlet tunic whose deeply slitted neckline was adorned with a large band of black and another of gold. Over that was a short-sleeved, hip-length padded vest of heavy brown cloth which had a castellated hem. On her arms were leather braces. She wore baggy tan trousers which had been stitched with thin red bands, creating a fishnet pattern. Her trousers were held close to her ankles by drawstrings, and on her feet were lace-up leather shoes.

Hanging about her neck was the only piece of jewelry which she wore, a heavy necklace composed of pewter beads interspersed by unpolished chunks of semiprecious stones - aventurine for luck, rhodochrosite for love, and orange jasper for protection. A large circular amulet hung from the necklace. Arranged in the center of the circle were larger chunks of the three stones, surrounded by arcane designs which rose up out of the metal. Hanging from the amulet was a row of small pewter balls suspended by chains. The slightest movement would set them in action, causing them to clash against each other and tinkle like tiny bells. As did many others, both orc and man, who possessed such talismanic jewelry, she believed that the stones had magical powers and that the noise of the metal balls would drive away evil spirits.

Her body flushed and tingling, the scent of warm feral musk strong about her, the hot, milky she-juices running down her thighs, Sulmûrz picked up an oaken tub, its sides rimmed with two rows of iron. The container was partially filled with water and held four bundles of thin hazel branches. Four feet long, tied tightly together near the butt end and supported in the middle by cord, the branches were frosted with gray and stippled with pale speckles and streaks of green where secondary branches and twigs had been cut off. Light and springy, the switches clattered against each other as Sulmûrz carried the tub down the steps and then placed the pail close to Durraiz and Bagalaam.

"Clever little things, ain't they?" chortled Durraiz as she took one of the bundles from the tub. "Here, you, Bagalaam, yer in charge of chastising the one called Gode. Sulmûrz, you put the fear into Ymma's rump! I'll take Aeffe! Red-headed girls are so fiery and fun to whip!" Laughing, she reached out a hand and touched Sulmûrz' auburn mane. Sulmûrz giggled and batted her eyelashes coquettishly. "Now let's get to it, dearies, and lay the switches on until the steam rolls off their arses!"

Cackling gleefully, their eyes glowing with unbridled lust, Durriaz, Bagalaam and Sulmûrz marched to the bound prisoners, smacking the springy switches upon their palms. While they went to their diabolical work, the other three orcs strutted up and down the two lines of slaves.

"How many lashes, Durraiz?" yelled Bagalaam. "How many are these recalcitrant tarts to have slapped on their lazy, pampered backsides?"

"Twelve and not one less! Heat them up slowly and let each stroke be a cherished memory!" Durraiz chuckled maliciously.

Aeffe looked over her shoulder, her eyes stricken with terror as the monstrous Durraiz approached her. Kneeling beside the girl, the she-orc noisily sucked Aeffe's earlobe into her mouth while she lightly raked her claws down her back, causing the girl to shiver in both fear and disgust.

"Yer a pretty little wench, and I hate to do this to you, but yer deviltry has forced it upon me! While I won't spare you one stroke, I'll tell how you can make it easier on yourself." She leaned closer, whispering in the horrified girl's ear. The brute caressed over the curve of Aeffe's buttocks and tickled over the girl's love pouch with her finger.

"You hateful, loathsome creature!" Aeffe cried out, sobbing and pressing closer to the hub. "That is the foulest thing I have ever heard in my life!"

"When the switches come down on yer pretty little buttocks and the pain is runnin' over ye in hot waves, just remember I tried to help you!"

Aeffe heard the orc's laughter, then the swish of the hazel branches as they soared downward. When the switch slapped over her rear, the sounds of both the thwack of the branches and her wild, piercing scream came simultaneously. The girl's body arched convulsively, jerking at the sudden pain that seared across her bottom.

"Do not clench your hip muscles like that, dearie! Just relax, thrust your bottom out, and it won't hurt so much! Let me see yer little rosy as I whip ye!"

As Durriaz drew back her hand again and lashed across Aeffe's reddening flanks, Bagalaam slapped her bundle across Gode and Sulmûrz punished Ymma. Working in unison, the she-beasts brought the bundles down over their victims' bottoms, the switches crossing over the first stripes, drawing tiny drops of ruby at each juncture.

"I 'ere that one stroke of an 'azel bundle is equal to four strokes of a birch cane. They'll be screamin' for the bleedin' birch soon enough! Ai!" Bagalaam snickered.

"You ugly heathen witches! Stop this unholy torture!" bellowed out a voice in the crowd. It was the mother of Gyrth, the little boy who had been treated for a broken finger and a carbuncle on his neck by the physician Tushratta just two days before.

"Another mischief maker 'as been found amongst us! Ain't there no end to these conspirators 'oo raise their foul voices against justice! Venal dealers in lechery, all of them! Blimey! They'll pay for their wickedness!" screamed out a grotesquely obese she-orc who had been stalking up and down the line of women on Ymma's side of the wain.

The she-orc had the face of a pig, concave, her features looking as though they had been pressed deep into her face like dates into a lump of dough. Her protruding eyebrows were wild and hairy, her eyes narrow and squinty, her nose flattened and squashed, and her ruddy lips were thick and bulbous. Upon her chin was a tuft of dark hair, much like a goat's whiskers, and several other chins cascaded down her flabby neck. Numerous moles and warts flourished in abundance upon her face, and from the crest of each one rose a dark hair or two.

Her beady black eyes scanned for those who had been prominent supporters of the escape attempt or who had fought the most against the orcs when they were recaptured. After all, there was a vacant wheel which could hold another malefactor...

Flauthkulot was her name, the "Feather Pillow." Her mate had named her that because, after copulating, he liked to rest his body upon the great quantities of pillow-like flesh which encased her frame. When in the grip of passion his belly had gone down to meet hers, it was as though he had fallen onto a giant lump of soft, warm dough.

Now, though, her ponderous girth had been shoved into ridiculously tiny and horribly unpractical leather armor, if armor it could truly be called. Indeed, there were spiked and studded vambraces of scale upon her forearms and spiked pauldrons of almost elephantine proportions upon her shoulders, but the vastness of her body was poorly protected against any real threats. Her enormous breasts had been pushed into an absurdly skimpy breast band of black studded leather. The construction of the minuscule garment must have been quite remarkable, for it seemed as though at any moment her huge paps would cause the band to split asunder.

Her ponderous, hairy belly hung over a slight black girdle, identical in construction and design to the breast band. Running between her legs and up the crack of her hairy, pimple-covered rump was a strap of leather which barely concealed her intimate parts. Tufts of dark hair, which had as their origin her ruddy deep valley of love, hung out obscenely over the sides.

In contrast to the massive girth of her body, she had tiny, delicate feet which looked all the more dainty in her thigh-high black leather boots. Combined with the short cape which was clasped about her neck with a pewter skull-shaped frog, the boots gave her a rather jaunty, cavalier appearance. As she pranced, she tossed back her coarse, curly black hair over her shoulder in a gesture of sublime arrogance.

Lumbering towards Gyrth's mother, Flauthkulot squatted down in front of the tall, pinch-faced woman, who stared unflinchingly back at her. His eyes bulging, his face pale and stricken, Gyrth wailed in fear and soon felt warm urine run down his breeches leg. "Módor!" he cried out in terror.

"Wot's yer name, woman?" Flauthkulot smiled into her face, revealing an amazingly sparkling set of perfect fangs, a gift of the mannish blood which flowed in her veins. Considering the whiteness of the pearls, one of her ancestors must have been an Easterling.

"Wihtfled, you filthy scum!" the woman spat out.

Bellowing out a rollicking garlic-flavored laugh in the woman's face, the she-orc tore off the cream colored kerchief that bound the woman's hair and tied it around her own curly mane. She smiled as the golden tresses spilled over the woman's shoulders. Grabbing her hair at the nape of her neck, the orc pulled Wihtfled's face close. "Yer a pretty faced tart! And yer tits and arse ain't bad either! Ye can lie betwixt me tits and warm me bed while me man's away! And when 'e's 'ome, both of us can share ye!"

"How dare you, you filthy-tongued beast!" the indignant woman screamed as she slapped Flauthkulot across the face. Laughing, Flauthkulot gave Wihtfled's chin a tap with her meaty hand, causing sparkling stars to whirl around the woman's head.

"Oooo, yer a spirited one, ain't ye? Me man and I'll 'ave some fun with ye! You'll like it, too, when 'e pierces yer second maidenhead, if it ain't been plundered already!" Flauthkulot squealed as she grabbed the woman's buttocks and dug her fingers into the valley between the two cheeks.

The gangling boy beside the woman screamed and drew back from the orc. "Módor!" he cried again, tears welling up under his eyelids and spilling down his cheeks.

"Gyrth, be quiet!" Wihtfled ordered between clenched teeth as she touched her painful jaw, which was hot and beginning to swell.

"Yer a troublemaker, ain't ye, lass?" The orc unlocked her from the line and gave her hair another jerk. "We know how to deal with ones of yer stripe! Pain cures that ill! That's the best medicine for those who stir up discord! Now come along and be quick about it!" Standing up, the she-orc dragged the woman to her feet. A shrieking Gryth was held back by two of the orc guards. The slave women muttered angrily, some rising to their feet in protest only to be shoved back to their knees by the guards behind them.

"There will be order here!" the guards cried out. "Down on your bellies!" Those women who refused were slammed face down to the ground.

"Halt the punishment!" ordered Durraiz. "We'll wait until this one joins 'er friends at our little party!"

Lashing out with her fists at a laughing Flauthkulot's face, Wihtfled felt the powerful, sweaty arms of another reeking she-orc lifting her under her armpits. Flauthkulot picked her up by the knees, and together the two orcs carried the struggling woman to the free wheel of the wain. Soon, she, too, was stripped and bound to the wheel.

Durraiz, smirking and snickering, called out, "This one is laggin' behind the other three on her due punishment! Kiss her backside twice with the 'azel and she'll be up with the other three wenches!"

"I am not afraid of anything you can do!" Wihtfled looked over her shoulder and glared at her tormentors.

"Ooo! Ooo! She wants it! She needs it! She craves it! She loves the sighing caress of the gentle 'azel! 'Ow I want to see 'er blushing bum after 'er fine moons 'ave been loved by the whip!" Flauthkulot grinned as she drew back her hand and then lashed the hazels across the woman's unmarred buttocks. Thrown forward by the force, Wihtfled bit down on her lip and tongue as she crashed against the round hub of the wheel. Spitting out blood, Wihtfled grasped the rim and clung to the metal. As Flauthkulot laid the second searing lash across her rump, the switches crossed over the first heated streaks and raised up bloody welts where they intersected.

"Dearies!" Durraiz shouted. "Can't you whip these wenches any harder? Those first two lashes were pathetic! Harder this time! We have many more to go! Make 'em feel as though a purifying fire has been kindled and is righteously burnin' in every weal!"