Katryn’s Tale

by Lady “B”
- do not use without the author's permission.



Chapter One

Katryn felt the two short tugs from the chain that was looped snugly around her neck and locked there with a padlock. Each end of a separate short length of chain had been wrapped several times around each wrist, and locked there with additional padlocks allowing only about one foot of separation. The center of that short chain was, in turn locked at her neck, by the padlock there. Katryn knew from recent experience that the tugs were her command to rise from her knees and get ready to move off. Katryn had been knelt for a brief rest while being watered and fed some type of awful mealy stuff from a leather bag. Her eyes followed the chain to where her captor had grasped it to give her the commanding tugs. As she rose to her feet she could hear the clinking of chain behind her which she knew to be the six to eight feet connecting the loop around her neck to an identical loop around the neck of the girl behind her. Katryn also knew that the arrangement of chain and loops was repeated three times after hers, holding a total of four captives.

The other three girls in order on the chain were Katryn’s friends, Madi and Lyra who were sisters about two years apart in age, and Cynda, who was unrelated to any of them. All four of the girls had been captured by a small band of mounted riders as they had crossed an open field not far from their village. The four captives were all in their early twenties and, with a certain degree of recklessness, had decided to journey out today, to pick the early spring berries growing next to the forest. The day had seemed to the girls to be entirely too beautiful for anything bad to happen so, ignoring the elder’s warning, embarked on their quest, alone, as none of the old males were willing to escort them.

The girls did not realize that danger lay hidden in the forest next to the partially shaded fringe where the berries grew. The raiders had planned well and were hiding at the forest’s edge, waiting for the girls. The girls approached and the raiders struck. Raiding parties like this one used lassos to capture their prey, throwing them with great accuracy while remaining mounted. Had the girls been able to reach the forest, they might have avoided capture, as lassos are of little use in the woods. However, Randor, the raiders’ leader had planned well, and the girls had been careless. Soon they were stripped naked and following after him on a chain.

The chain pulled again on Katryn’s neck, and she was forced to follow where it led her. After a few steps it pulled harder, yet, and she was forced to increase her pace from a walk to a light run. The leading end of the chain was not held by her captor but, rather, snapped to a ring at the back of his saddle, so it was really the rider’s strong mount, not the rider himself who was pulling Katryn and the girls along.

When the raiders had first attempted to lead the girls this way, Katryn had decided to resist. She decided to test her resolve against the strength of her captor’s mount by firmly planting her feet and refusing to move. When she did, however, she was simply pulled from her feet on to her knees on the forest floor. Also, the loop tightened painfully on her neck, and she received a series of stinging lashes across her back from the riding whip of the raider sitting his mount just to her left. Katryn quickly scrambled to her feet and the stinging rain from the whip stopped. Surprised at the strength of the mount of the raider leading her, Katryn resolved not to try that again right away.

The party of ten raiders and four captives continued to run along for what seemed to be hours and hours. Unlike little Katryn, the sisters, Madi and Lyra, and even Cynda, the tallest of the four, began finally to fade. When it became clear to Randor that the girls were, indeed, playing out, he slowed them to a walk, but kept them moving. He also noticed that the little freckled red head at the front of the chain was the least tired. She had also been the hardest to catch, and was proving herself to be the feistiest. He rode along with a definite feeling of self satisfaction for having decided to keep her. Because of her short stature of little over five feet tall, he had almost left her behind.

Until they had really begun to tire, even the three girls who lacked Katryn’s strength and stamina, had been able to keep pace fairly well with the raider’s mounts even when running. These raiders were not humans mounted on horses as they might have been on Earth, but rather elves less than half the size of the human girls they had captured. Their mounts were not horses, either, or any other large quadruped, as none existed on this world. The ten elves all rode on the backs of girls or women. Each of the elves mounts was completely naked except for a saddle and bridle, boots on their feet and cuffs on their wrists connected to collars on their necks with short lengths of chain.

The elves’ mounts all appeared extremely fit and, given their pace, apparently carried their riders with ease, with little or no evident strain, showing only a light sheen of sweat on their muscular bodies. Most of them appeared to range in age from their late twenties through their early forties. However two, with beautiful short gray hair showing beneath their bridles, appeared to be exceptionally fit women, in their mid or later fifties. These two, like the younger girls, all had magnificent bodies, and evidenced no sagging whatever of breasts, stomachs or buttocks, their skin being quite supple and tight.

One very exceptional mount was the girl ridden by Prindor, the youngest elf in the raiding party. Prindor’s mount was a beautiful nineteen year old named Lacie. With a tall slender body and delicate facial features, Lacie also had deep blue eyes, long platinum blond hair and deeply tanned perfect skin. On Earth, a girl like Lacie could easily have been a “supermodel”, and earned a fortune from her looks. On this world, too, Lacie was certainly of great value, but so were all girls that had been trained by the elves for riding. On Earth, Lacie surely would have owned houses, cars, jewelry, clothes, and all the trappings of wealth. Here she owned nothing, not the saddle on her beautiful young back, the bridle that encircled her lovely head or the bit between her perfect teeth. Here Lacie was, herself, owned.

In the eyes of her young owner and rider Prindor, Lacie, was indeed the equivalent of a thoroughbred. Prindor was extremely proud of Lacie, and treated her accordingly. Over several days, Katryn had noticed Prindor’s special treatment of Lacie, and wondered if he was perhaps intimidated by her shear beauty. “Although he’s an elf and not a human, he looks almost human, and he’s still a male,” Thought Katryn. However, in watching them carefully, Katryn realized that there no question which of the two was in total control. Prindor was clearly the rider, and Lacie was, without question the one being ridden. Prindor sat comfortably in the saddle on Lacie’s back controlling her with the reins, while Lacie wore the saddle and responded instantly to the bit in her mouth. She was ridden as hard, or harder, than any of the mounts in the raiding party. Prindor just seemed to enjoy keeping Lacie clean and groomed, and her long beautiful hair curried and brushed and fastened up in a long cascading ponytail.

Also in the elves raiding party were two additional naked girls with large powerful bodies who bore big heavy pack saddles on their backs containing the raiding party’s supplies. These girls, named Tana and Beth, had about ten feet of rope connecting the collars that each wore. A second length of rope ran from the lead girl, Tana’s, collar to a ring at the back of the saddle on one of the grey haired women who was ridden by the one apparently old elf in the party.

The four new captive girls had known from childhood the purpose of elf raids on humans. They also knew why they had been taken and what was now to be their fate. Elves were small, short legged creatures, and their mobility on this world required they have animals to ride. The four girls had been captured for exactly that purpose. They were to be broken and trained to become what in the elves’ language, were known as “saddle girls”.

The elf term for “girl” was used generally to refer to all female humans with their terms for “filly” and “mare” being used for age differentiation. When first acquired by elves whether through trade or capture, new girls were generally categorized according to their physical characteristics and builds. Therefore, terms such as “saddle girl”, “draft girl” and “pack girl” were used to describe, not only how a girl appeared, but her likely eventual service to the elves, and the type of training she would probably receive. Although draft girls were more likely to be used to draw vehicles or implements such as plows, they could, obviously, be ridden as well, and often were. Conversely, it was not uncommon for saddle girls to be harnessed and hitched to draw vehicles, especially light buggies and the like. Pack girls also served multiple purposes as well.


Chapter Two

It had taken over a week of hard riding for Randor’s raiding party to travel from their own village to the vicinity of the one where the humans lived in order to conduct their raid. After days of pushing, the elves’ mounts except for Vixin and Lacie, were beginning to tire and attempted to slow down earlier each day. Randor kept setting the pace on the tall powerful Vixin, while Prindor on slender Lacie matched her stride for stride. The other elves in the party were forced to push their girls hard to keep up. There was good reason behind Randor’s haste. He had a schedule to keep with nature.

Randor had planned this raid the previous year when he had scouted the area. He had discovered the great patches of low growing berry bushes, and he knew well that these particular plants produced an abundance of sweet berries of which humans, and especially human girls were especially fond. He also knew when the berries would just begin to ripen, and that was very soon. Key to his plan was the fact that these plants would only grow in an open area immediately adjacent to the Eastern edge of a dense forest of tall trees to shield them from the strong afternoon sun. The elves would be able to conceal themselves and their mounts in the forest to wait, but by timing their charge, be able to catch their prey in the open where they could be easily caught.

On this world, the human diet was bland, monotonous and lacked much in the way of sweets. Although they tried, humans had been unsuccessful in cultivating berries in their large, safely fenced but sun drenched agricultural plots. As such, they had to come out of their walled villages and farms to pick the berries which they did, en masse, when the full growth had ripened. Last year, though, Radnor had witnessed what was the key to his plan. On the first few days when the berries were just beginning to ripen, a small group of humans, including several girls, came out to try to get the very first berries of the new season. That is what Radnor and his band was counting on this year.

Last year’s small group of berry pickers had not been escorted by heavily armed old males, as the later mass would be. Only one or two of the old male humans with their long bows had accompanied a group of girls. The elves would have a huge advantage as they were armed with crossbows which they could all fire with great accuracy even with their mounts at a dead run. Also, the old human males were as likely as not to flee back to the safety of their walled strongholds, leaving the girls to distract the elves to assure their own escape. Also, it had been years since the elves had raided this particular village and Radnor had predicted that these humans would likely have become complacent. He knew, precisely when last this village had been raided some nineteen years ago. “It is high time, though, that I got back”, he mused to himself while giving Vixin a couple of soft proprietary slaps on the top her left shoulder followed by a good natured tousling of her beautiful dark red hair through the headstall of her bridle. How well he remembered that earlier raid, and especially its result.

In the elves’ language, girls, whether saddle, draft or pack, were usually described first by the color of their hair in generally equine sounding terms. Randor’s mount, Vixin, with dark red, almost amber hair, was actually referred to as a “Dark Roan”. Most of the other elves in his party rode “Browns” or “Blacks”, which were the most common colors for girls. Of the two older women one was a “Grey” and one actually a “Silver”. If Prindor’s mount Lacie’s skin had been pale, with her platinum hair, she would have been considered a “White”. However, with her light hair and deeply bronzed skin, Lacie was a “Palomino”. Darker blonds were known as “Buckskins” or light or dark “Tans” depending on the shade of their hair. Although the elves had the knowledge to bleach or dye a girl’s hair, they rarely did, so the hair on a girl’s head as well as that between her legs was almost always natural in its color.

Radnor and his party reached the area where he remembered the berries to be thickest late in the afternoon, and carefully circled to leave no tracks for the humans to find. Reining Vixin to a halt and placing his hand on her head, Randor signaled the girl to lower herself for dismounting. She did so immediately by dropping to one knee, lowering the seat of her saddle over a foot. Randor swung down and, dropping the reins, left her “ground hitched”. Vixin was so superbly trained that she froze to the spot. Radnor then removed his spurs and riding boots, and slipped in near the berries in his stocking feet, leaving no tracks. The condition of the berries was perfect for his plan, as they were just starting to ripen. If the humans were also aware of this fact, they would probably arrive the next morning or the morning after at the latest.

Like most elves, Randor always wore spurs when riding whether on Vixen or any other girl. The spurs, however, that Randor and most elves used were designed to command a girl’s attention, not to cut or injure her. They were of rowel design with short curved shafts putting the rowel just over an inch behind the wearer’s boot heel, with the curve going toward the inside of the foot. The rowels themselves had multiple blunt points set close together and generally made from hard wood or bone. The skin of a girl’s flank is thin and sensitive, so a light touch there from her rider’s spurs is generally all that is needed to communicate a command. Actual injury to her skin there, or worse yet, the muscles below it, was never a desirable outcome either for the girl or her rider.

Randor returned from the patch of berries, put on his boots and spurs, and remounted the still kneeling Vixin. He signaled her to rise with a couple of gentle upward tugs on her bit which she instantly obeyed. The elf party, then, circled the berries, and moved well into the forest and set up their typical cold camp. After feeding and watering them well, the elves picketed their mounts to sleep. Before dawn, the elves had their mounts awake and bridled. Before saddling them, the elves all thoroughly massaged each girl’s powerful legs and hindquarters to loosen their muscles for the chase that might come later in the morning. The sudden stops and turns required when chasing, could too easily pull or injure cold muscles. A girl with a pulled muscle was to be avoided as that would affect her ability to keep up with the party on the return trip.

About mid morning, Randor knew that his plan had been a good one, and that luck was really with him, when he saw four girls approaching from across the field carrying empty baskets to hold the berries. Luckier still, they had no male escorts, so a fight would not even be necessary. The raiders left their weapons at their campsite where Tana and Beth were tied with the old elf to watch them, and shook out their lassos for the chase.

Each girl would first be lassoed around her neck by one elf then, as she fought that loop, she would be dropped to the ground by another elf by throwing his loop around one or both feet. Once a girl was down, the two elves who had lassoed her would loop their lassos around horns on their saddles, and back their strong mounts until the girl was stretched out on the ground. At this point two more elves would leap from their mounts to tie her wrists behind her. After her hands were tied the loop around her feet or foot would be loosened and removed. Then, the elf whose lasso was on the girl’s neck, would turn and spur his mount to begin pulling until she scrambled to her feet and followed. While each girl in turn was being roped and tied, the other riders kept circling those remaining, using their lassos or whips to keep the girls from escaping into the forest, or running back across the field the way they had come.

Catching the girls in the open field, as they did, the chase would have been over fairly quickly but for the feisty little freckled redhead. Her speed and agility cost them an extra twenty minutes of hard riding and chasing. Had it not been for Vixin, seemingly deciding on her own that “enough is enough” and running into the girl, literally knocking her from her feet, the chase would have taken even more time. However, finally little Katryn too, was roped and tied. It took, however, two mounted elves with lassos to control Katryn and get her to the camp site. One elf rode ahead and pulled her along while the other rode behind, with his lasso also tight on her neck to keep her from trying to dart around trees to tangle her lead.

Radnor had almost called off the chase when the little “Strawberry Roan”, as he thought of her, had proven so difficult to catch, and besides she was short. Radnor knew that tall and lanky girls like the other three were the ones to command the highest prices, once they had been trained for riding. Most elves tended to equate long legs with greater speed and a softer ride. However, there was just something about this one that told him to keep chasing her, which they did.

A quickly as the girls were caught, they were dragged, stumbling along, to the elves’ camp by the lassos on their necks. Once there, with all four girls, the elves forced each to her knees, and worked quickly as a team to get them stripped amd chained and ready to travel. In their fear and panicky efforts to escape the elves, all of the girls had wet themselves in varying degrees. While stripping and preparing to chain them for travel, Randor’ keen sense of smell tipped him to the likelihood that this had happened. A quick hand check of the damp hair between their legs confirmed it. Rather than distaste, Randor’s response was one of relief. This would save him a lot of time, compared with pouring water down each girl’s throat and waiting for the inevitable result. There was something that was important to Radnor that he wanted to know.

After confirming what he had smelled, Randor went to his pack and returned with a small vial of powder. Pouring a small amount into the palm of his left hand, he approached each girl in turn to rub a bit of the powder into the wet area between her legs. As Randor had hoped, the powder made a slight grey stain and nothing more. No color appeared indicating what he had hoped, and that was that none of the girls was pregnant. Randor smiled his relief as he quickly finished chaining the naked girls for travel. When he had first stripped her, Randor noticed with some interest, that the little strawberry roan’s freckles covered, not just her face, but her entire small body. “Interesting”, he thought as Vixin’s skin was similarly colored.

As quickly as the four girls were stripped and chained, the elves got them to their feet and ready to travel. Pursuit by the old human males was unlikely, but Randor wanted to take no chances. He knew that once they crossed the range of low hills to the north, and forded the shallow river that wound through them, they would be safe. The humans never tried very hard to recover girls taken by elves.

Randor had attached the captive’s lead chain to a ring at the back of Vixin’s saddle, mounted her, and with a quick touch from his spurs, sent his big mount lunging forward. Of course, that was the little strawberry roan’s first rebellion. She had dug in her heels in an attempt to hold fast. The little red’s resistance was short lived, however, against the shear strength of Vixin, and the momentum she already had built up in just a couple of her powerful strides. The strawberry was jerked from her feet, and was just beginning to be dragged along the ground. Prindor who was riding just to the left of the girl, leaned down from Lacie’s back to give the little red several quick stripes from his whip encouraging her to scramble back to her feet to follow obediently. All the elves then spurred their mounts to a brisk trot with Vixin pulling the girls while elf riders on both sides of the chain provided a bit of leather “encouragement” for any that might try to lag.

The elves’ traveled only by day as they had no wish to risk injury to the captives feet or ankles that could come from a fall or stepping on uneven ground in the dark. They were, after all, wearing only the light shoes in which they had been captured, which were barely adequate for the fast traveling over sometimes rough ground that the girls were being forced to do. The elves’ mounts and pack string were all shod much more substantially in medium heeled light leather boots that laced up well above their ankles providing excellent traction, support and protection over rough terrain. These boots had clearly been specially made for each girl as elves were always keenly aware of how important the condition of a girl’s feet were to her rider. Not only did the boots fit with perfection, in most cases they also matched the wearer’s saddles and bridles in color. Elves were, in general, most particular when it came to selecting tack for their mounts.

Nights on the long trip back to the elves village followed a pattern. First, after being allowed to relieve themselves elsewhere, the captive girls were secured by wrapping their lead chain around a handy tree and attaching it with the padlock at Cynda’s, throat. Then, as the four girls watched, the elves’ took light hobbles from one of the heavy pack saddles, and locked them around the ankles of their mounts and pack girls before removing their saddles, bridles and boots. Depending on water availability, the elves would then do their best to wash the day’s accumulated sweat and dust from their mount’s legs and bodies. They would then rub them down thoroughly, especially their legs and feet as they dried. The same attention was also given to the two pack girls, Tana and Beth who were quite obviously carrying much heavier burdens than were the saddle girls. All were then fed and watered after which they were allowed to roam freely about the camp restricted only by their hobbles.

The elves then prepared and ate their own meals before relaxing until it was nearly dark. During this time, with the exception of Vixin who always remained close to Randor, the saddle and pack girls would often wander out of sight of the camp in small groups of two or more. This never seemed to concern the elves, as none of the girls could really get far in their hobbles. They all seemed to return shortly before dark, when they would be tethered together to a picket line strung between two trees, and allowed to bed down for the night.

The new captives were given the same feed as the elves’ mounts and pack girls, but ate it with difficulty due to its taste. Initially, only severe hunger brought on by their nearly constant walking or running allowed the four captives to overcome the taste and eat at all. However, by the second week of travel the feed’s taste was becoming less objectionable, if not actually, quite tolerable.

Although they were still very tired by the end of each day’s travel, the captives began to notice that their pace was being increased day by day, and that they were able to handle the change. Madi, Lyra and Cynda all attributed this to their belief that they were becoming better conditioned due to the constant exercise. Although she knew this to certainly be a contributing factor, especially for the other girls, Katryn, who was already in excellent physical condition, knew that there had to be something else at work. She, also, noticed that the elves’ mounts always maintained the same pace as the captives did, and didn’t appear to tire nearly as much even though each carried the additional weight of saddle and rider.

As dark began to fall at their camp, the elves took their minimal shelters from one of the large pack saddles, and set them up. The elves always slept in shifts with at least three on guard while the others slept. Katryn noticed that Radnor, who by now she had identified as the leader, slept far less than any of the others. She also noticed that there was something strangely familiar about Randor’s magnificent mount, Vixin. Perhaps she was imagining it, but Katryn had the strange feeling that Vixin rarely took her eyes off of her.

Other than Randor himself, the young elf, Prindor, was always the first to rise in the mornings, to groom his beautiful mount, Lacie. As she stood or knelt before him, he would again wash down her beautiful body and waist length hair with cold water as he had the night before. While still slick with water, he would thoroughly massage the girl’s legs, back and hindquarters before brushing out and tying up her almost white blond hair as it dried. Prindor always knew exactly where on Lacie’s head to locate the base or her ponytail so that it came out high in the back just above the top head strap of her bridle. He would then bridle, saddle and shoe her for the upcoming long day of riding.

Lacie clearly had affection for Prindor and definitely enjoyed all of the attention he paid her. She made her feelings clear, not only by nuzzling him with her head when ever she got the chance, but also by her obvious willingness for him to ride her. Katryn could not help but notice this relationship which seemed so very strange to her. “How can a girl like her accept being treated as an animal and ridden like that?” “Worse yet, she actually seems to enjoy it.” Katryn mused to herself. She also noticed a similar relationship seemed to exist between Randor and Vixin if not most all of the elves and the girls that they rode.

Due to the slower pace of their captives, it took the elves about two weeks to get back to their village.



continued...