[center]"The Enslaved"[/center]

[url=https://i.imgur.com/ZR9Un7A.jpg?1]Lady Tanna of Westmoreland[/url] slowed her mount and looked about herself at the carnage of what it would turn out was the last battle of the four year long West Valley War.  Scores of her men moaned and writhed in pain from their injuries.  Most would die in the hours or days to come.  For every still living man, Tanna could see at least one other who made no sounds or movements.  This battle -- this war -- had cost her father, the King, very dearly.

"The prisoners?" she asked one of her Lieutenants as she approached him.  He gestured toward a nearby hillock.  She took one last look about herself, then told the officer, "We're moving out at dawn.  Give those who will be able to walk food and water."

"And the others?" the Lieutenant asked, knowing that there wasn't enough of both life sustaining necessities for all.  When she only urged her horse forward, he stiffened to attention and confirmed, "[i]Yes[/i], m'lady."

A short ride later, Tanna found almost two hundred enemy soldiers sitting or laying close together, encircled by more of her men.  She found another of her officers here, asking, "How many can walk out of here?"

"All of them, m'lady," he responded.  "They are all bound or shackled and ready for transport."

When Tanna looked to him with a questioning expression, he gestured his sword to a nearby group of enemy soldiers, all seemingly dead.  They were being stripped of their arms, armor, boots, and other valuables by the civilians who followed her force from battle to battle, provided services and scavenging from the dead. 

She understood immediately: the Lieutenant had already [i]culled[/i] the group, killing the seriously wounded and those who were not ambulatory.  "Get them up and on their way now.  They leave today."

"For Westmoreland?" he asked with a hopeful tone.  It had been a long war for those lucky enough to have survived it, and he wanted to go home just as badly as anyone. But he caught the expression on her face and spoke the next location on his mind: "South, to the slave market of Praul?"

She nodded.  "I want one Company to escort these men.  The other five will--"

"Three," he interrupted.  He bowed his head in apology, then explained, "There are only enough able men left to comprise four Companies, m'lady, [i]not[/i] including the injured."

Tanna looked back to her previous location, then out over the vast battlefield.  She'd had no idea that so many of the dead had been her own.  She had watched and often directed the battle from the relative safety of a nearby, forested hill, giving instructions to Signalmen who then flagged the Officers of the Companies of men on the field.  She hadn't always held back from the fighting, often joining in the attack, particularly night ambushes and raids on unsuspecting enemy outposts.  But this last fight was destined to be a true killer among battles, and her father had ordered her kept back from the blood and guts of it all, even if it meant shackling [i]her[/i] to a pole 'til the killing had ended.

She took a moment to consider the damage of so many lost lives, not just to the army but to the Realm itself.  She then ordered, "One company will escort these men to Praul.  Two others will escort the injured and our supplies ... what remains of them.  I want the fourth to ride out ahead toward Westmoreland and secure food, water, ale ... women.  Whatever our heroic troops require." 

As the Lieutenant turned to gather his subordinate officers, disseminating the orders to them, Tanna scanned the latest batch of prisoners. Stripped of their armor and in some cases most of their clothes, she could see that some of them were well built men.  They would fetch a good deal of coin at Praul's slave market, with many of them being used in mines or in the rebuilding of the towns and cities damaged during the wars that had ravaged not on the West Valley but most of the World in recent times.

Most of the men kept their heads down, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention.  Their Guards had lost friends, brothers, fathers, and sons in this latest fight, and despite the worth of these men at the market, Tanna's soldiers would not hesitate to skewer an one of them for even [i]hinting[/i] at a desire and ability to once again return to fighting.

[url=https://i.imgur.com/jRsyszG.jpg?1]One of these men[/url], however, raised his head to stare directly at Tanna.  She turned her horse to depart, then hesitated to look him over.  She marveled at his physique; this was no ordinary fighter, conscripted by his Lord from his job as a farmer or rancher.  In the whole of her army, Tanna knew of fewer than a dozen men who might match this man in appearance and rightfully presumed strength.

"[i]Lieutenant![/i]" she called out to the Officer still giving orders to his subordinates.  She pointed a long finger directly at the man squatted on the ground and demanded, "Have that one delivered to my tent.  I want the [i]stench[/i] and [i]filth[/i] washed from him first."

Without any more details to her Officer and giving the enemy prisoner one last, emotionless look, Tanna spurred her horse away.

[center]************************[/center]

Tanna spent another hour or more surveying the results of the battle and disseminating more orders regarding the living, the dying, and the dead.  Back at her lavish tent, she stripped, bathed, and dressed again; her long gown was made of half a dozen sheer layers of delicate silk, each of which on their own would have easily shown off her beautiful, well rounded body but which together only hinted at what she had to offer the right man -- or woman? -- should they begin to be discarded.   

The enemy prisoner had been brought from the slave encampment to Tanna's secured area, stripped, and bathed.  She would hear later that they had been some ... [i]difficulty[/i] getting him to cooperate but that the Guards had taken care of things as they'd deemed necessary.  

When she was finally ready to see him again, he was led into her tent, once again shackled wrist to wrist, ankle to ankle, and then wrists to ankles such that he couldn't raise his hands past his waist.  He wore only a deer hide tied around his waist; it covered him front and back from his hips nearly to his knees, leaving his marvelous torso on display but hiding his buttocks and [i]manhood[/i]. 

With four Guards there to protect her, Tanna took a slow walk around the prisoner, giving his God-like physique a long, hungry ogle.  He'd been [i]instructed[/i] not to speak unless spoken to, and when finally Tanna had made her third circuit around him and ended up standing just out of harms way before him, she did indeed speak.

"I am Lady Tanna of Westmoreland..." she began as she looked him in the eyes with a bit of a victorious smirk on her lips.  She continued, "...Commander of the Grand Army of Westmoreland ... and, as you likely understand already, [i]daughter[/i] of King Horlock and heir to his throne."

Tanna let her eyes drop to the prisoner's chest and belly, then reached a fingertip out to gently caress it down his front side, from the middle of his muscular chest to his belly button -- which it circled -- and finally to the deer hide cloth wrapped around his waist.  She pulled her hand back, looked into his eyes again for a moment, then returned to circling him in an unhurried pace.

"As a prisoner of war, an [i]enemy[/i] of Westmoreland," she continued, once again looking him up and down, examining his near perfection as a man, "your life is now in my hands.  If I ask these men to kill you, [i]right[/i] here, [i]right[/i] now..."

She glanced to the Officer amongst the four.  He immediately pulled a short sword from his belt and pressed its sharp tip to the prisoner's chest.  Behind the shackled man, Tanna gave the Lieutenant a slight shake of her head just for clarification, continuing, "...they will without hesitation."

She reached out and easily pulled loose the knot holding the deer skin around his waist.  The hide fell away, leaving the man naked as Tanna resumed her walk slowly around him.  When she was before him again, she playfully tilted her head as if trying to look around his shackled wrists and hands as they blocked her view of his [i]personals[/i].

"If I ask them to ... [i]relieve[/i] you of your manhood..."

The Lieutenant's sword shifted from the prisoner's chest to his crotch, the sharp point making contact with the sensitive flesh of one inner thigh.  Tanna couldn't help but giggle at the man's reaction.  She stepped up close to the Lieutenant, reached out to take hold of the hand holding the blade, and steadied it.  A single drop of blood escaped from a tiny cut caused by the Officer, Tanna, or both.

"...or if I chose to do it myself," Tanna continued.  Her devilish smirk could have been read to mean she was only playing about or was eager to slice off the man's [i]family jewels[/i]. Who could really know at this point?  She urged back both the sword and its bearer and took her place before the prisoner again.  "I would rather not do any of those things just yet.  You are quite a man.  I haven't seen men like you often, so ... it would be a shame to have to castrate or kill you so soon in our ... [i]relationship[/i]."

Tanna turned away and spoke softly to the two female servants who'd been enjoying the [i]show[/i] from nearby.  They both hurried out, and when she turned back to face the man, Tanna attracted the Lieutenant's attention and gestured.  The Guards manhandled the prisoner backwards into a solid wood chair with a slightly tilted back, then altered the way he was shackled; when they were done, he was leaning back in the seat with his wrists shackled to poles at his sides and his ankles shackled to stakes sunk through the cloth covered floor and deep into the hard, packed dirt.

"We're having a celebration," Tanna told him as she gathered his deer skin from the tent's floor and neared him. She opened up the hide and laid it over his groin and thighs, again concealing his more personal area.  Giving it one last look, then looking to his face with a smile, she informed him, "You are to part of our entertainment."

She began to step away, then hesitated and looked back.  "Please forgive me.  I haven't yet asked you your name."