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Kargorr

H is muscles swelled with blood as he swung his axe. Another man fell, and the sound of screaming all around him filled his veins with fire.

Cedar had taken to his seed so quickly that his warriors now spoke often of finding their own human concubines, so Kargorr resisted his instinct to finish the job whenever he came upon a young man or woman. The band had horses now, and many wooden wagons, so they could bring as many prisoners back with them as they chose.

Lord Kargorr gave every youthful body a cursory look, but no one spoke to him. No one stirred him. His sarga knew who his true mate was and wanted nothing but to return to her.

This was their third outpost. Soon, he thought, they would be ready to move on the settlement.

He had been gone for nearly two weeks now, and the ache for his yapira was undeniably powerful. Whenever he thought of their orcling, nothing more than a tiny pebble inside her, he longed to call off the rest of their quest and return home.

No. He would have his way with Cedar when he returned, but for now, he had something to prove.

When everyone was dead save for two human women, who his warriors had chosen for themselves, the grrosek took what they could and loaded it up into the new wagons. Kargorr left the farm animals, having plenty of supplies already, and then they burned the village to the ground to the tune of the women’s sobs.

Odd, he thought, that his Cedar had never cried. But that was why his sarga had chosen her. He had known from the first moment he smelled her who she was.

After two more days’ ride, they reached the settlement. From scout reports, they would have to ride through a significant amount of farmland before reaching more densely populated areas. But Kargorr’s force was significant, as he’d brought almost every single capable warrior with him, hoping that the parog could fend for itself.

That night, he held a long discussion with Orgha as to the best path inward.

“Make them think we are larger than we are,” Orgha said. “Split into groups and approach from multiple directions. Let them believe they’re surrounded. Leave fire everywhere we go to confuse them.”

This was why Kargorr had chosen this orc to be his right hand, after all.

With a swift nod, Lord Kargorr agreed. They gave out troop assignments, and two of their number would remain behind to guard the women and supplies.

They waited until night had fully fallen before creeping out from the trees. Kargorr had not yet sent Liga home—he wanted his best warrior, the cat’s huge jaws, to help him on this mission. They had never attempted an attack as bold as this. And though he knew the humans didn’t stand a chance, he still didn’t want to lose a warrior when he didn’t have to. Not when they had family waiting at home for them.

Not a concern he’d particularly cared about before, he thought. It was an odd thing, a new thing, to worry about going back alive.

They raced silently toward the village, mounted on their cats to muffle the sound of their footsteps. Kargorr lit his torch, then held it out as they passed fields of wheat, letting the flame touch everything it could. Smoke rose into the air elsewhere outside the settlement, where his second troop was spreading the flames.

Two guard posts sat at the edge of the settlement, and already men were shouting up in the tower. But it was too late. Kargorr and his warriors streamed past amid arrows falling. He circled the guard post, trailing his torch along the walls, as Liga snarled at the volley dropping from above them. His cat was too fast to be caught by human arrows.

Men screamed as the fire spread. Kargorr spun and followed his warriors into the settlement, where people had fled their homes. He cut and sliced, rent and tore, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. His blood sang, his muscles swelled, his veins pulsed.

He heard one of his warriors roar a few houses away, and he quickly urged Liga to follow the sound. A band of humans had gotten one of Kargorr’s number alone, and he was run through with a sword, his cat snarling and hissing as the humans backed it up against a wall.

With a powerful shout, Kargorr ran at them from behind, sweeping with his axe to take off a head, swinging down to remove an arm. When the humans had all been summarily executed, Kargorr swung off Liga’s back and went to kneel by his comrade, who was bleeding out on the ground. He exchanged a nod with the other orc, who tapped his chest with his hand one time. Then Kargorr ran his axe through his comrade’s head to end his suffering.

Once his warrior was dead, he mounted up and continued his path, holding his torch high over his head to catch fire to the thatch roofs.

It was a long and bloody night, and Lord Kargorr had never felt his purpose so clearly laid out in front of him. Someday, he would come here with his yapira . It would no longer be a parog of tents, but a whole city as their number grew and other parog came to join them.

Kargorr howled his victory as he speared a fleeing man through the chest, and his warriors howled back, scattered as they were. Soon, the sun began to rise, and the settlement fell quiet again save for some whimpers as one of his warriors dragged back a human man, ashy from the flames.

He nodded at Kargorr. “My conquest,” he said, and the warriors all tapped their chests.

As they strode out of the ruined settlement, smoke drifting into the orange morning, Orgha stopped next to him. “No one for you?”

Kargorr arched an eyebrow. He doubted the question Orgha asked was the one he really meant.

“None that caught my interest,” Kargorr finally said.

“Hmm.” Orgha knew better than to pry more, but Kargorr had a feeling his right hand had already seen through him.

Cedar

When Liga returned, hope swelled in Cedar’s chest that Kargorr might finally be on his way home. The enormous cat was surprisingly pleased, so much that she rubbed her nose up and down Cedar’s chest. She hoped it meant Kargorr was all right.

It had been nearly three weeks now, and though it worried Cedar that they hadn’t received word from the raiding party, Rathka rolled her eyes and said, “They’ll return when they return, and no sooner.”

The silence was most deafening at night. In it, Cedar could hear every beat of her heart, a single drum thumping, while something inside her told her that Kargorr’s bigger, heavier, slower one should be beating right next to it.

She helped the leatherworker as often as she could to keep her mind off of Rathka’s words and had quickly become his valued helper. He allowed her to toil away on her bear when she had done some of the drearier work, and as she hollowed out and cleaned each part of it, she thought of that heavily beating heart.

Now, Rathka would leave Cedar there alone to attend to her own matters, seemingly unconcerned that Cedar might try to run. And never did anyone look askance at the human woman in their midst as she left for the evening and walked back to Lord Kargorr’s tent alone.

It would be so easy. No one would give Cedar a second look if she headed toward the edge of the camp and walked out into the snow.

The huge tent loomed even larger around her, now that she knew what it was for. The emptiness made her ache, and so did the specter of another bed filling that space.

If Cedar had to watch Kargorr take another woman, she would claw both their eyes out. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

But he wouldn’t. Things had changed since he built this tent. Hadn’t they?

Cedar slept less and less, sometimes lying awake for hours as she stared up at the gap in the ceiling, where she could just barely make out stars. Now, instead of eating too much, she ate too little. Rathka would put more food in front of her, but to Cedar, it all tasted like nothing.

“You have to feed yourself as well as your orcling,” Rathka would say, pushing the bowl closer again, and Cedar would eat enough that she was left alone.

Late one evening, while Cedar lay in bed with the fire dying in the pit, a horn blasted. The sound pierced air like a knife.

She covered her ears, wondering what could have happened. Were they being attacked?

Kiya pinned his ears back as she passed him and peered out the tent door. Now she heard... cheering? Orcs streamed out of their tents, down the pathways toward the gathering area. Another horn sounded, and she heard a familiar roar of victory.

Lord Kargorr had returned.

Her body lit up like a flame. He was alive. He’d come back to her.

Cedar ran along behind the other orcs, trying to get ahead of them so she could see him first. Horses were assembled at the entrance to the camp, orcs mounted on them, blood covering their bodies. They pulled wagons full of goods. At the center rode Kargorr.

Her orc. Her monster. Half of his face was brown with dry blood, bisecting it once again. His tusks curled cruelly up over his lip. Her single beating heart jumped, sensing his was nearby.

And then she heard the sobbing.

She knew that sound. Women. Cedar’s eyes searched until she found them: two human women and one human man, being led out of the wooden cart where they were held.

Horror descended on her. Rathka was right.

The flame went out like ice water had been poured on it. Kargorr had brought home new concubines. He planned to replace her with these meek, sobbing women. To spread his seed, like he had once promised her.

Cedar stopped where she was, and then backed away as other orcs passed her.

She was nothing, after all. Just a warm body to be used and thrown away, as she’d always known she was.

How could Cedar have been so foolish to think anything else?

Her arms wrapped around her middle as she turned and bolted back to the tent. She had to be fast. She would get her baby out of this place, far away from him. Cedar would never, ever watch as he took another woman. She would never lie there and listen.

Her chest was impossibly tight as she snatched her cloak and boots, shoving them on as fast as she could. This was her only chance, while everyone was distracted. Kiya circled her, clearly concerned at her sudden frantic packing. She threw some food from the table into a bag and turned to leave. Kiya followed her, as he always did.

She couldn’t bring him with her. She couldn’t feed him if she could barely feed herself. Who knew how long it would take for her to find a human settlement?

Taking his leash, she tied him to the post, kissed his forehead, and then fled the tent.

She wouldn’t let Kargorr do this to her. She would rather die.

Cedar walked the opposite direction of the gathering at a normal pace, trying not to attract attention to herself. But everyone was enraptured with the new arrivals, so she burst into a sprint, running past tent after tent. The cheers and cries of other orcs rose into the air as the party was welcomed home.

She felt sick to her stomach, like bile was already burning its way up her throat.

Finally, Cedar was out in the snow, running away from the light of the torches mounted around the camp. It was a dark night, but the stars glittered brightly, lighting her way. She had held in the heaving misery until now, until she finally reached the woods, and then it crashed over her.

Cedar sobbed into a tree trunk, pausing just long enough to get her breath back. He cared nothing for her and their child.

Then she stilled her tears, knowing she needed to put as much distance as she could between herself and the camp. She remembered how Kargorr had threatened her with the whip, and knew that if she was caught, she would be lashed while his new concubines watched.

So Cedar ran, summoning all the buried strength in her legs, into the woods. She didn’t know what lay ahead there, but it was better than what lay behind her.