To attempt to put Portia's emotions down into words would be foolhardy. Words themselves could never describe the venomous thoughts racing through her mind of what she would do to that wretched apekin. Wrath coursed through her life fire; her rage suppressing all but the need to kill.

   Her younger sister had been taken from her. Fayre, whom she loved dearly, despite her acting so young at times, had been stolen away by a wild creature, a deviant: a dirty, vile man who deserved naught more but Portia's torturous massacring a thousand times over. She would find him. She would take her sister back. And she would destroy him.

   Portia, normally so fair and beautiful, was turned into a an ugly creature of vengeance. She ran through the wilderness, reckless; heedless of everything but reclaiming Fayre. Poor Velius was left far behind. In the distance approached the rough city wall of Raestall, constructed of sturdy logs half buried in the ground, sharpened into points at the top. Sitting lazily in front of that wall, taking careful note of the rushing incomer, was a hefty bullkin surrounded by many empty bottles of brew. His movements were sluggish, but his eyes were as alert and piercing as a sober man.

   He eyed carefully the rushing felinekin in her green tunic and dark leather breeches as she ran by.

   “What's your business here to cause such haste?” called out the bullkin, his voice booming and sounding slightly irritated.

   “Piss off!” came her rushed reply as she ran into the city. She went amongst the busy streets crowded with a throng of peoples and was lost to sight.

   Snorting heavily in anger, Everley the bullkin rose to his hooves, staggered slightly before righting himself against the wall, then pursued the felinekin more slowly.

   She had not done well at concealing herself further in the city. She left a wide wake as she went around asking about a deranged apekin and another felinekin. Suddenly curious, Everley wondered what business would bring three Savages to this small outpost all at the same time. Were they refuges from Stonetide same as he? If so, why were they dressed well and groomed instead of ragged and stinking as all slaves were? It was an unusual anomaly; one that he would have to investigate.

   Pushing the stinking Slavers out of his way, Everley forced his way back into the city of Raestall to follow the raving felinekin.

 

   “Where is he? Where is that damned apekin? I'll kill him! I'll kill him!”

   “You draw far too much attention, slave,” Everley called viciously over the crowd. He stood a foot taller than everyone around so speaking over the crowd came easily for him.

   On the cobbled street, with a throng of people to every side, staring and bearing them both a wide birth, Portia ran directly up to Everley and stared up into his dark eyes. “Where is that little son of a %%$%@ that took my sister? I'll snap his neck!”

   “You won't be killing anybody if these Slavers decide to take you in,” Everley reproached, his voice low but rumbling. He reached out a mighty paw and grasped Portia around her shoulders. She backed off and swatted angrily at his arm, but he persisted, gripping her tightly around both shoulders with only a single paw. Rather forcefully, he pulled her off the street.

   “Unhand me!” Portia raged. “Let me go, you beast! I have to find my sister!”

   “Silence!” Everley roared. He shoved her into an alley, away from the throng of Slavers, and trapped her there. His muscular form filled up the entire narrow alley, preventing escape. “Restrain yourself or they'll come after us both! Do you not think it suspicious that mere days after the ruin of Stonetide, a crazed Savage rushes into this trading post, screaming and yelping about murder and revenge? Causing a scene like that, they'll lock you in chains before the day's end! Are you daft?”

   “You don't understand,” Portia shot back with steel in her voice. “He took my sister! I'll string his hide like an animal!”

   “And can you not do so without drawing the attention of the entire damned city?” Everley roared viciously back at her. At length, hearing his words, Portia's ranting subsided. She stared back up at him, eyes fiery with burning hatred, unwavering even in the presence of a fierce bullkin nearly three times her size.

   “I care not for you nor your sister,” Everley continued, his voice lowered. “But if you bring upon yourself the remaining army of Stonetide, they'll incarcerate me, too! While you may be quick to return to that hell, I'll relish my freedom for as long as it may endure. Which means stopping other Savages like you from drawing undo attention! Do you hear me?”

   “Aye.” Portia's voice was cold as ice. “I hear you. While I'm ripping the still beating heart from his chest, I shall make sure I do so quietly so as to ensure that you are not taken back to Stonetide.”

   “You'd do well to ensure that you do not return there as well,” Everley amended, turning aside to let Portia pass.

   “I do not care as long as I get my sister back.”

   “If it means putting your sister in the stockades, I'd think you would care.”

   Portia halted, and looked at Everley critically, taking in everything from hoof to horns. He was large and muscular, that was certain. A long-hanging loincloth of leather and criss-crossing bandoliers of black leather strapped across his bare, chiseled chest.

   “What do you care?” Portia demanded, critically. Her eyes were cold and mistrusting. “It's none of your concern.”

   “It's not,” Everley agreed readily. “And I don't care. Just seems pointless to me: fighting so hard to save your sister only to wind up getting you both killed by the Slavers.”

   Portia's gaze lingered upon him a moment longer, considering him and his words, before moving back out upon the street, mixing in with the throng. This time she was silenced, and moved with the crowd, rendering herself invisible to the average observer.

   Everley snorted heavily, an expression that could have meant anything, and left the alley behind. Once in the middle of the street, he stopped and swung his massive head up and down both sides of the street. The crowd split widely to bear him berth. In the distance, amongst the hair-covered heads of the lesser Slavers, Everley could just make out the felinekin's fur and triangular ears. She was approaching the center of the trading post, where the furs and meat were sold in earnest and the greatest volume of people gathered. He wondered vaguely how that crazy Savage planned to find her sister amongst the chaos of business in this town. Anyone could purchase or even lose anything in this city.

   There's very few people that have their fingers on the pulse of this busy town. And one of them was a hideous little bastard; he was a wretch of a beast said to live in the underground bowels of the trading post. He was a Savage like Everley, and was said to control the workings of the entire town from behind the scenes.

 

   Mordred the Savage was his name, and he was as nasty a Savage as they came. If the girl's sister were indeed kidnapped by some sick little apekin, he would know about it. Little happened in this town that he did not know about.

 

  “Look, boss! We have a fresh Pretty for you, so we do!”

   The apekin's nasal tone flooded the room before the resounding peals of mad laughter echoed painfully loud in the cramped dungeon. A short arm, pink and bulging with veins and muscle, swung around and knocked the laughter from the apekin's lips, knocking him and his felinekin captive halfway across the room to land in a heap. Fayre cried out painfully while the apekin just chuckled to himself, only this time more quietly.

   Mordred the Savage did not hit him harder. This meant the boss was pleased!

   The wreck of a hogkin, stinking and sweating and covered in an impossibly soiled tunic and breeches, held over his bulging girth with a tied rope, waddled his mass across the distance of the room and leaned down close to the apekin's catch. He snorted, scratching his long, brutal-looking tusks with a dirty fingernail. He reeked so badly of feces and alcohol that Fayre could not speak without retching.

   He inspected the girl for several long minutes from an uncomfortably close distance, his beady little eyes, dark and menacing, straying long over the same parts the apekin had so recently discovered.

   “Smiles!” bellowed the wretched hogkin, thrusting the fat sausages he called fingers in his direction.

   The apekin smiled up at the hogkin from behind Fayre. His angular arms still held her fast across her midsection.

   Smiles? Fayre wondered incredibly. That is his name?

   “What is this ##&&* you brought me? Smooth fur. Nice ass. Tiny little &$%*, though. If I beat these around, they're apt to fall off on the damn ground. Not worth $#@!.”

   “Ah, but that's not the best part, boss,” beamed 'Smiles' the apekin. “She might not be much to see above the waist, but it's the surprise below that'll make her a fine fair, indeed.”

   “Yea, what?” The foul hogkin with his dirty, discolored hands roughly grabbed the bottom of Fayre's skirt and yanked upward, pulling her bottom half along with it. Smiles held fast onto her stomach, and for a moment she feared being split in two between the both of them. Her skirt tore in the ruthless grip of the hogkin before he finally released. “Don't look like nothing. Can't even see her womanhood down there, it's so small. How you expect the big boss to fit in that thing?”

   His evil grin split his face wide as Smiles spoke, and his eyes sparkled with raging insanity. “She's fresh.”

   “What ya mean?”

   “She's not been despoiled.” The apekin spoke with pride at this, puffing out his chest and holding his head upright, meeting the merciless gaze of his stinking employer. He may have been the proudest man in the world at that moment. “It's all yours to claim.”

   The hogkin seemed to ponder this a moment, then lifted the skirt up anew, causing Fayre to shriek at the suddenness of it. He looked down there for what seemed like several minutes before releasing. Her rump fell hard against the packed dirt floor, and she lay there, cast aside and forgotten as they haggled over her price. She gazed around the dark room, but the firelight burned at her vision and the smell of sulfur and smoke caused her eyes to water. She tried to rise to her hands and knees but fell clumsily to the side. Her coordination was gone, and her limbs seemed to respond slowly or awkwardly, as if she controlled them like a puppet them from a distance away.

   The effect of the mindleaf was strongest on those who had never sampled it before, and Smiles, in his delirium, had forced her a take a higher dosage than what was usually safe. Her mind swam, words seem to ooze through the air into her ears, and her muscle coordination was nearly inexistent. She could barely breath, little lone move. And every breath she did take was infected with mold, mildew, soot, or hog sweat.

   At length, coin exchanged hands and the apekin made for the stairway to exit. Already, looking back at the hulking, sweating, snorting figure waiting for her in this dark torture dungeon, made her long for only moments ago when she and Smiles had been talking on the loft of the abandoned barn. She missed him already, for in the arms of this hulking wreck, she dreaded what was to come.

   That was when the commotion from up above began. All three looked skyward as they heard the smashing of wood and the tumbling of heavy furniture. A loud crash and the unmistakable whoosh of liquid escape confinement told them that the keg kept in the cabin above had been smash and dumped.

   “Tend to that!” roared the hogkin angrily. Spittle flew from his grotesque, tusk-filled mouth as he yelled. “Kill them! Do whatever you must! You will ensure my privacy with this one, or I'll rip your man-stick off with your bare hands and feed it to you!”

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