The Orc King's Shrink Ray Ch. 01

Mattias Yargsen was a born and bred warrior. He was skilled, sharp, and adept on the battlefield. At twenty-five, he was at his peak physical condition. He'd been born just after the orc incursion had begun, so he grew up always knowing he'd be fighting against the orcs. The unspoken truth he knew was that he'd probably die at an orc's hands. The humans were fighting a losing battle. The Orc forces were tough, ruthless and so numerous that they'd already taken much of humanity's land. And even as valiant human heroes took out Orc squadrons, more just took their place. Even worse, there'd been rumors that the Orcs had been negotiating with the elves. They usually stayed out of worldly business, so their intervention did not spell good things for humanity.

Mattias expected it when his time came. The Battle for Tarsers. Mattias' steed was slain on the battlefield and he was flung off, landing with the resounding clamor of his armor. All around him, the earth was upturned and the grass was burning. He heard his comrades screaming, each one taking blows from the brutal, hulking beasts. The general Horus Gughor sneered down at Mattias; it had hardly been a match. Anticipating the painful death that Mattias had seen take many of his brethren, he scrambled to his feet. The escape routes were blocked by two other orcs, each of which was about eight feet tall. Even in Mattias' armor, he was dwarfed by comparison.

He drew his silvered blade, sharpened this morning by his lovely wife Teresa. The general sneered down at him, unfazed. The boy waited a moment before surging, crashing forward with an explosion of speed and energy. In a flurry, he tried his best to sink the blade between the chinks in the general's wargarb. The blade flew from Mattias' hand as one of the brutish fellows held fast to his arm. It was sent across the outcropping, slicing through the air.

Gughor was surprised for a moment. He'd forgotten how determined humans could be. Even when the entire battlefield behind them is covered in their allies' corpses, they'll keep thrashing until they can't move. It's a stupid mindset, one he would've very much liked to correct. However, chief medical officer Byrog had requested a few fresh captives. He said the old ones had... expired... and he needed a few more test subjects. He couldn't help but smile at the smaller man as he wriggled around, fighting the orc guards' unmoving, restraining hands. He fit the medical officer's request. Gughor reached out and grabbed the man, lifting him up to Gughor's level. He tugged at the man's helmet until a leather cord snapped and the helm went flying. The man's face stared into Gughor's brutal black eyes, his expression filled with fury.

"Goodnight," Gughor said clearly in the common tongue before he brought his own helmet down onto the human's head. It impacted so sharply that the human lost consciousness in an instant. He entrusted the body to the guards, who were medical officers under chief Byrog. He looked down at the unconscious human, his features so soft compared to the hard faces and tusks of the orc males. 'How unlucky for him,' Gugorn thought as he turned his back on the man. 'Based on what I know of chief Byrog, he'd much rather be dead.'

--

Death at an orcs hands was what Mattias had been expecting. When he came to consciousness, his panic began to crystallize, realizing the situation he was in. It was dark, wherever he was. Metal shackles encircled his wrists and ankles, long lengths of chain clinking when he mustered the strength to move a limb. His sat in puddles of water near the wall of a dank, stone-cobbled room. His forehead ached horribly from the blunt force hours earlier. He slowly remembered the sequence of events, which only made him more fearful. The orcs didn't usually keep prisoners. What's worse, Mattias had heard rumors around the village... they said orcs, more than humans, didn't care about what gender they had sex with. Because they were on military campaigns for so long, when they couldn't take a female captive, they sometimes had sex with each other. "And maybe," Mattias thought. "A prisoner of war would work, too."

The door to the room opened, casting the stone brick in wide swaths of torchlight. Mattias surveyed the chamber; it was a dungeon, all right, wide and spacious. Six sets of shackles adorned the walls, a wall of bars separating the room from dark recesses of the deeper passageways. The room held one other prisoner, who was still unconscious. Mattias recognized him as Jon Gilbert, one of the men of his battalion.

The orc entered; it was one of the guards who'd apprehended him. He stood tall, his bulky muscles giving him a top-heavy appearance. His waist was slender for an Orc, but still thrice the width of Mattias. He no longer wore his armor and the blood had been washed from his face. His tusks were polished, though still yellow and chipped. He wore a simple tunic and kilt, the fur of some burly animal draped across his shoulders. Instead of the polearm he'd wielded on the battlefield, he held a steel-capped quarterstaff. His helmet had been replaced by a bald head and a short black beard. Mattias readied himself as the orc's inky, inhuman eyes locked with his.

-

In the basement antechamber of the Orc-occupied camp, Remok jeered at his comrade, Amok. He'd won the coin flip to decide who'd get to summon the prisoner. While he'd killed many humans in the past, it was exhilarating to observe one. It was like playing with their toys. Remok liked to play with his toys. And, if their boss's plan works, they'd all be getting a lot more toys to play with.

Remok turned the key and pushed the door in. He looked between the prisoners, noting that there were only two left from this last batch of raids. They'd need more soon. His eyes settled on Mattias' conscious body. He was young; the orcs that went to battle were usually no younger than 40. The human forces really were running low. Though his body was tarnished by battle, his thick blond hair and sharp face gave him the complexion of one of their nobles or princes. Granted, it wasn't very noble of him to be naked and chained in a dingy dungeon. Especially with that sex... Remok didn't know that humans penises were that small. It was very embarrassing for the soldier, and Remok enjoyed that. He couldn't help but find amusement in the man's defiant glare.

The boy surged forward, chains rattling around him as they ground heavily against the cobblestones. He only got halfway to his feet before he crumpled, disabled by a combination of muscle dysfunction and restraint. Remok grinned. "Yeah, no more of that." He sneered in Orcish.

The soldier just glared at him. Remok recalled his assignment; Remok and Amok had been ordered to bring an unconscious prisoner to the testing room for chief Byrog. They'd get to stay and assist him, which they were very much looking forward to. Remok wished he could take this fucker now, but he knew that orders were orders. Still, he remembered the man's outburst before and the impact to his head. He walked the few steps between himself and Mattias. He stuck a hand out towards the man's head, which was around the height of the orc's belly, and flicked him in the forehead. The man, now screaming in pain, tugged at his restraints to grab the throbbing injury. When he screamed, though, the other prisoner began to stir. His chains rattled, matching Mattias'.

'Shit,' Remok thought. 'Didn't think of that.' Now neither of the humans were unconscious. On the bright side, Remok considered, now it didn't matter which prisoner he brought. "Now you've done it, dumbass," he told the insolent human, grabbing his face hard. He brought him close to the orc's mouth and switched to common so the idiot could understand him. "You get to be next."

--

Mattias was laid out on a medical table. It appeared to be a hardwood door, repurposed and covered in some sort of thermoreactive lacquer. It held fast and sticky against the warm-blooded humans, while the cooler orcs could easily work on the surface without being affected. That's what three orcs were doing currently, two of which were the pair of guards from earlier. The third was considerably older, wearing a white cloth tunic. His ponytail, a signature look for high ranking orcs, was long and white. His thick beard was a matching color, scraggly and full. His eyes were sharp in a way that scared Mattias more than the brutish strength of the orcs.

He'd fought getting on, but now that his nude body was trapped on the table he'd resorted to screaming. Amok had to club him three times in the stomach to get him to cease the annoying drivel. Mattias was unsure of what was going to happen to him, but he was positive it wouldn't be good. He really hoped he wouldn't be cut open and, if he was, he hoped he wouldn't still be alive to see it happen.

Above Mattias, the older orc swiveled a device into his vision. It looked like a large geometric crystal, inlaid in a geodesic matrix of slender green-gold strands. It occurred to the soldier that it didn't look like anything he'd ever seen the orcs have before. Rumors of elvish technology... Oh, gods. What did the orcs have waiting for him?

"Relax," The older orc spoke softly, in common, near Mattias' ear. "You will live. It's better for you and us if you cooperate. Hopefully, you'll serve the king soon!"

"Fuck you!" Mattias spat back.

The older orc only smiled, lips pulling back to reveal more of his tusks. They were the color of day-old snow. "Well, you will cooperate. It's just a matter of time. And that's completely up to you." He patted the human's cheek and returned to speaking Orc. "He is resistant. We can't trust him to serve the king if he is so indignant."

"It needs to be punished," Remok observed.

"And trained," Amok agreed. "It doesn't know that Orcs are superior to humans."

Dr. Byrog nodded. "You're right. Though, I still say we use the device first. There's no reason that we cannot train an augmented human. Actually, it should be easier. Furthermore, there'd be no point in investing time to train him before testing the elves' spell array. If something goes wrong, we would've wasted all that time."

"Gee, you're right doctor," Amok commented in amazement. "You really are as smart as they say."

"Thank you, Amok. You'll get there; I am old enough to be your father, after all. Now go ahead and power the machine. Moment of truth!"

Amok and Remok went to the magical array, switching some of the crystal knobs around so that a beam of light began to shine down the axis of the prism. It hit Mattias' naked body and began to intensify.

"What's happening to me! What are you doing?!?"

He watched as the three orcs' interested faces disappeared in the bluish light. Mattias squinted hard to protect his vision. He felt an intense heat washing over his body, growing almost intolerable. An electric feeling circled through him, churning his spiritual energy. All he could do was feel the sensations and try his best to power through.

When the light subsided, he was still locked on the table. He felt... weird. It was difficult to describe until he settled on the device, which was smaller in his vision than it had been. The older orc appeared above him again, but this time his head was around the size of Mattias' own.

"Are you familiar with an elven spell to manipulate a creature's size?" The guards smiled wickedly down at Mattias as he processed what happened to him. The orc chief pulled out a rectangular pad which radiated arcane energy. He adjusted its configuration and the three orcs watched as Mattias shrunk until he was only two feet tall.

"How small can we go?" Amok asked eagerly.

"If everything went as planned, as small as you'd like," Byrog explained. "We want to be able to manipulate this one's size at will. That way, it can serve a full range of purposes."

Mattias looked up at them in horror. They'd grown to giants five times his size. Like this, the slightest whim of an orc could break him irreversibly. He did his best to hide his fear behind a brave face. A soldier shouldn't cry in front of his enemy.

"His sex has become even smaller," Remok observed. He reached out and prodded the floppy length, watching the small penis bob back and forth. It made Mattias cringe; his concussed mind wasn't ready for a pang of arousal. He writhed as the orcs laughed.

"Alright, enough dawdling. Lets release and start testing."