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Cedar

H e had forgiven her.

Well. He would forgive but not forget, he’d made that clear enough. She took those words to heart, because she would never forget, either.

She was grateful he hadn’t truly punished her. Fucking her with the hilt of a dagger, followed a few erotic slaps on the ass, was the least formidable sentence she could have dreamt up.

He truly did not want to hurt her, she thought, as he cleaned her with a cold, wet cloth. Then he brought her into his arms and crushed her against him, as if she had been the one who terrified him and not the other way around.

In the morning, Lord Kargorr was gone when she awoke, and Cedar was surprised she hadn’t felt him leave. She rose from the bed and saw the weapons had all been packed, all except the dagger, which now lay on the furs next to her.

Was it a gift? She got out and put on her clothes, then started rolling and bundling up the furs to make them easier to transport. The half-orc from yesterday returned and dismantled the tent, and many orcs had to work together to lift the main post out of the ground and then topple it into the wooden cart.

Cedar tucked the dagger into her belt, hoping that’s what he’d intended by leaving it with her.

That was when she heard a noise that nearly sent her skeleton crawling from her skin: a wild trumpeting that echoed in the frosty air. She wove through the remaining tents of the camp, toward the sound.

It came from a massive beast, taller than the sky, with two scythe-like tusks protruding from beneath its long trunk. It was covered in shaggy brown hair, and certainly it could squash her with one misplaced foot.

Cedar screamed and shrunk back when she saw it, and the massive creature let out another trumpet, alarmed.

Two huge arms wrapped around her, binding her arms to her sides. “Shh,” Kargorr murmured into her ear. “Stay still and calm. You don’t want us all trampled.”

Cedar shuddered but did as he’d ordered, keeping her trembling feet placed right next to one another. With a hum of approval, Kargorr released her, and the beast now stood without any further trumpeting.

She watched as the rest of the tent was loaded into the sledge, and then the sledge was yoked to the massive beast with ropes and wood. Then it plodded away, led by its keeper, another half-orc woman. The sledge was pulled along behind it, over the snow.

“It’s time to go.” Kargorr still hadn’t left Cedar’s side. “I have something else to show you, little deer. But you must not shout or scream.”

Cedar wondered what other horror he had to bestow on her after that terrifying beast. Still, she followed along behind him as he led her down what used to be rows of tents, but now was bare ground filled with leftover postholes. Up ahead, she could make out a big lump in the snow.

“Liga!” Lord Kargorr’s voice surprised her. “Come!”

The lump rose, and what she saw took her breath away.

The creature that appeared was beautiful, in the way swords were beautiful. Cedar knew just looking at this massive animal, with its round ears, soft snout, and fangs that curled a whole hand’s length under its jaw, that it could easily kill her. It would barely have to lift a paw. Muscles rippled through its lithe body as it approached them, and Kargorr advanced on it. Reflexively, Cedar grabbed his arm to hold him back, and a grin pulled at his mouth.

“I will be fine,” he said quietly. Then he rubbed the huge cat’s forehead, and it made a low, rumbling sound as it rubbed back.

“It’s purring ,” Cedar said in wonder as Kargorr began slipping a harness on over the creature’s head. Just like a pet cat.

He seemed pleased by her reaction and urged her to come forward. After all this, Cedar didn’t think he would let her get hurt, so she followed along. Liga—that must be the animal’s name—observed her curiously as she approached.

“Hold out your hand,” Kargorr said, extending his own palm up. “Like this.”

Cedar did as she was told, hoping against hope it wouldn’t choose to take off her arm. Her palm was trembling when she held it out, and the cat leaned down to sniff her.

It seemed, mostly, uninterested.

“Come with me.” Kargorr gestured for Cedar to walk around the creature’s side, where two ropes attached to the harness lay crisscrossed over its neck. Two hands seized her around the hips, and Cedar tried to keep from making a noise of surprise as he hoisted her onto the furry back. Liga danced underneath her, and she couldn’t help a little bleat of alarm.

But soon Kargorr was mounted up behind her, and he looped one arm around her waist before picking up the ropes.

“Liga,” he said in a brusque voice. It was followed by an Orcish word that Cedar didn’t understand.

“Hold on tight,” he told her, right in her ear. And then Liga began to move.

Cedar clung to his arm, her only rock in the storm, as the huge beast leapt into a lope. With every step, Liga’s spine moved underneath her, and Cedar thought surely she would get hurled off into the air.

“Move your body, little deer,” Kargorr said. His hips circled smoothly behind hers, while she bounced up and down with each of the huge cat’s strides. “Let yourself sway with her body. Use your hips like you would if you were on top of me.”

Her lower body tensed at the implication, and she grimaced as she met directly with Liga’s back. The cat hissed with displeasure at her inexperienced rider. But Cedar knew it would do no good if she didn’t listen, so she tried to imagine herself astride Kargorr, her hips moving in synchronicity with his as he plunged inside of her. Her thighs loosened, sinking her down onto the creature’s back. Soon her legs were no longer fighting with Liga’s powerful movements but traveling alongside them, and she found herself undulating in time with Kargorr’s firm body. It felt as if all of them were one single creature loping across the snow.

As they made a loop, they returned to find the camp was empty, and in its place stood more of those great, furry beasts with the noses that fell to the ground. Another trumpet sliced through the air as Liga swiftly passed them, until they had reached the front of what Cedar realized was an immense line.

Kargorr brought Liga to a halt, next to an orc she recognized as Orgha, the one who had captured her that day at Lissa’s house. If he hadn’t caught her, none of this would have happened. She would’ve escaped into the woods and found her freedom.

She flared her nostrils at him and looked away.

Orgha rode another great cat, with an orc woman astride one next to him. He and Kargorr spoke to one another in their tongue, and then the command was spread down the length of the caravan. Whips were snapped, and all at once, the enormous creatures moved.

Reflexively, Cedar shrank into Kargorr’s chest, away from the huge leg that crashed into the ground right next to them. He huffed in amusement and urged Liga on. She sprang forward, nearly throwing Cedar again, and quickly returned to the front of the caravan.

It felt like only minutes had passed when Cedar’s hip and abdominal muscles began to tire of the constant movement of Liga’s back. Once they were hours in, and the sun was high in the sky, she moaned.

“Can we have a break?” she asked, since all the movement had also dramatically increased her need to pee.

“No,” was all Kargorr said. Then, he slowed Liga down to a walk and fell back until they were among the mammoths. He lifted her by the butt, up into his lap, and it was moments like these she became acutely aware of how much larger he was that he could hold all of her weight on his groin and thighs.

“Now relax,” he told her, and Liga resumed. Sitting atop him this way, all she had to do was to be carried along, and she wondered where they were going next.

Kargorr

He would have to ride with Cedar more often. He would teach her how to move her body in time with Liga’s. Perhaps she could raise a cat of her own someday, when she could be trusted with one.

The idea interested him immediately. If she became attached to a pet , that might be just the thing he needed.

She wore the dagger at her belt, as he’d hoped she would. Perhaps if he put the power in her hand, rather than keeping it from her, he could earn some of her trust. Besides, she needed a way to protect herself when he was gone.

A shiver rippled through him. Leaving her alone was unappealing.

Lord Kargorr led the caravan down snowy slopes, toward what remained of a village they had raided a moon ago on the edge of the tundra. For the next move, they would need to build wheeled carts in order to travel, but he had chosen a wooded area that would provide plenty of raw material for the work.

They rested at night, and he was reminded of when he first brought Cedar back with him, and she fought sleeping in his furs alongside him. But this time, on the first night of their journey back southward, she crawled in rather gratefully, and he thought he even heard a pleased sigh when he brought her in close to his body. Cedar sank into his warmth, and quite soon, she was asleep. The steady sound of her breaths slowed his pulse, and the beating of her tiny heart against his chest lulled Kargorr into an easy darkness.

The next day, they traveled hard. When they made camp, Kargorr helped butcher three carcasses so the parog would have plenty of raw meat for their cats and more to cook over the fire. He caught sight of a familiar human woman, picking her way through the various sledges and campfires, searching for something.

“Two more down,” he called to her, and she spun at the sound of his voice. He gestured onward. “Keep going.”

Her brow furrowed, but she did as she was told, and the assembled orcs turned to watch as she passed. There were a handful of humans among the parog , but his claiming of one for himself had drawn her some attention—perhaps some of it unwanted.

So far, though, no one had challenged him over it, and he wanted to keep it that way.

When the butchering was finished, Lord Kargorr found himself eager to find her. He weaved among the sledges until he found the one carrying Cedar’s pig and her piglets. His concubine sat with two orclings, all of them playing with the baby pigs together.

At the sight of him... a great smile crossed her face, and she held up one of the piglets, who honked and squealed at being displayed in such a way.

“You kept them!” She brought the dirty pig to her cheek and embraced it. “You kept Bread Pudding.”

Was that the pig’s name? Kargorr wasn’t surprised to find she had named it. He simply nodded as he approached, and she put the pig in her lap. The two orclings each had a pig of their own and were feeding them stale chunks of bread—but when they looked up and saw Lord Kargorr, they quickly put down their playthings and ran off into the parog .

“Everyone’s so scared of you,” Cedar said thoughtfully as he crouched down near her.

He nodded. “As they should be.” That was the way of things, the right of things. Respect and fear were tied into each other. There was a healthy amount of it that kept the grrosek in order.

Cedar made a disapproving noise with her tongue, but didn’t speak her objection.

“It’s time to go,” Kargorr told her, rising to his feet.

She replaced the piglet in the sledge, and it scurried back to its mother. She was clearly sad to leave it.

But someday soon, this tenderhearted woman who had tried to stab him in his sleep would be carrying his orcling, attending to it and caring for it, and she would need no further piglets. But perhaps he could give her something to tide her over in the meantime.