Page 12 of The Outcast Orc (Claimed by the Red Hand #1)

12

QUINN

The next morning, I checked Marok’s wound. It was obvious that between the flickering firelight and the dark of night, my eyes had been playing tricks on me. By the light of day, the orc looked nothing like a man. His hide was a mottled grayish green, and his limbs were so thick with muscle it was a wonder he could even move. “Does it hurt?” I asked as I peeled off the poultice.

His only answer was a noncommittal grunt.

I pressed the backs of my fingers gently to his side. The cut was still bleeding sluggishly, but at least the skin around it wasn’t hot or inflamed.

“Will I live?” he asked.

And again I was caught off-guard by the dryness of his humor.

Given that the wound hadn’t closed, he would have been better off leaving off his armor, but he was no more likely to go without it than to ride in the back of the wagon with Archie. If not for the thin trickle of brownish blood running down his side, I wouldn’t have even known he was injured.

But Archie was another story.

He wasn’t coughing, not anymore, but he shivered violently despite the warmth of the day. The orcs conferred briefly, then told Bess to keep watch on him while we traveled, and hoisted her into the wagon beside him. “We should grant him a mercy,” I heard Borkul say.

Marok shook his head. “He’s the whole reason we made this journey. If he wants to keep struggling like this, we let him.”

I wasn’t sure if they knew I was listening…or maybe it was more that they didn’t care. I might not be in irons, but regardless, I was still a captive. These were orc woods. If I ran, I’d be just as likely to run away from the Fortifications as toward them. Besides, I’d be as easy for them to track down as a lame doe.

“You didn’t need to come,” Marok said to the other orc after a long silence. “But you did. When no one else stood by me…you did.”

Borkul whacked him on the shoulder with a blow that would’ve sent me sprawling. “Bah, what are heart-brothers for?”

Without goblins on our tails and no need to lighten the load, we could have all ridden. But I preferred to lead the oxen from the ground—and Marok took up his position at the opposite side of the team. Borkul was happy enough to ride, though, and he snoozed from the driver’s bench, head lolling.

We walked in silence for ages. Evidently, orcs aren’t much for chitchat. But eventually, my curiosity got the better of me. “Why Archie?” I asked.

Marok glanced across the team and briefly met my eye. “It was foretold.”

Not sure what reason I’d been expecting…but it certainly wasn’t that. “How?”

He answered my question with a question. “Does your village have a shaman?”

I came from a city, not a village. And a witch doctor ? “Of course not.”

“Then you wouldn’t understand.”

“So…explain it to me.”

“You ask too many questions. It’s not our way—and the chieftain won’t indulge your human curiosity for long. If you’re smart, you’ll learn to do what you’re told and keep your mouth shut.”

And that, apparently, was all he was willing to say about it.

We trudged along in silence, stopping only to finish off what was left of the hardtack and jerky. The trail joined with another, and grew wider and more deeply rutted as we neared the orc village. The sun was lowering and the nighttime cold was settling in. I knew I could hardly expect a featherbed and glass of wine. But it was obvious the orcs were invested enough in keeping us alive to feed us, so I was looking forward to a meal and a warm fire.

…and was greeted by a rotten head on a stake.

It wasn’t human—at least, I didn’t think so, but it was so decomposed, it was really hard to tell. The pole was a good five or six hands taller than me, tufted with garish, brightly colored feathers around the neck so you couldn’t possibly miss it. The scalp had peeled open, exposing the white curve of a skull. The eyes were long gone, pecked out by scavenging crows, no doubt.

Marok took no notice of the grisly head whatsoever, and Borkul was still dozing in his seat. I was burning to ask about it, but figured I’d only piss the orcs off.

Still…when I saw the second head, I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

“What about the…y’know…?” Marok glanced at me and said nothing. I sighed. “The heads?”

“We mark our borders with a warning to our enemies. That one was a mongrel who tried to break into our armory. The green feathers mark him as a thief. When another thief sees it, he’ll know better than to target the Clan of the Red Hand.”

Up until now, I’d only heard the term mongrel used in regard to a dog. But the head on the pole was unlike any dog I’d ever seen. The skin color was nothing to go by, an ashen, greenish black. The skull shape didn’t seem quite as flat as a goblin’s or as tall as an orc’s. Frankly, he looked a bit like the blacksmith’s uglier son, though I was sure he’d never set foot beyond the Fortifications’ walls. The one remaining ear, I saw, was slightly pointed.

“Who are the mongrels?”

“Not who—what. Creatures that are neither one thing nor the other. That one had some goblin in him, I’d wager. Maybe some troll, too.”

By the time we came upon the next warning head, I was still stuck on the notion that trolls and goblins were capable of producing viable offspring together. “A goblin can mate with a troll?”

“Only a stupid one who doesn’t value its own head,” he chortled. “Trolls aren’t known for their romantic nature.” He glanced at me over the team. “How are you so sure of yourself when you don’t know anything?”

Good question. “Maybe it’s in your best interest to educate me so I don’t end up asking something stupid and making you look bad.”

He shook his head ruefully…but didn’t disagree.

I said, “I’m not entirely hopeless—I know that a dog can hump a cat all it wants, but that doesn’t mean there’s a litter of puppycats on the way.”

“Animals are animals. Sentient races are men. Why some beings can think and others not, who’s to say? Maybe, long ago, we who know ourselves were all the same.” Fascinating. Back at the bazaar, maybe there hadn’t been a dozen different monstrous races after all, but the byproducts of the mixing and mingling of just a few. “You’re not as advanced as orcs, of course.” He gave his ox a pat. “But you’re not animals, either.”

I knew I wasn’t supposed to ask any questions—but I was getting much more of an education than I’d bargained for.

“Now, that one there…” he pointed up at a ghastly male head, eyeless, half-crushed, beard crusted with dried blood. “Pretty sure he’s all human.”

I counted twenty stakes in all—and that was only on the particular path we were traveling on to the orc village.

Given that the path was lined with heads, I expected to find something horrific at the end. But instead, there was just a wall of hardened timber, logs sharpened at the top, stretching off into the trees on one side, and out toward a sheltering bluff on the other. Nothing like the stone Fortifications, obviously. But though it was primitive, I didn’t doubt it was effective.

As we approached, a pair of armored orcs met us—a male and a female. The female’s armor fitted the curves of her trim waist and lush hips in a way that suggested she hadn’t just thrown on something designed for a man…which meant it wasn’t unusual for the women here to have things like armor. She wore her dark hair longer than the men did, pulled back and plaited. She wasn’t much taller than me, but if I challenged her to an arm wrestling match, no doubt she’d put me through the table. Both orcs had the greenish skin and the broad, muscular build of Marok and Borkul, but each one’s features were totally distinct.

I can tell them all apart now, I realized.

If the guards were surprised to find their clan members traveling with humans, they didn’t show it. Actually, they strode right past Marok and me to talk to Borkul.

In greeting, both guards thumped their chest plates and said, “Praise Ul-Rott.”

“My sword is his,” Borkul replied easily. “Tell me, has your brother made any headway with his archery since I left?”

The male guard smirked. “Hardly. Unless you count shooting over the targets as a win. What have you brought back with you?”

“Three humans.”

The guard sniffed, nostrils flaring. “No goblins?”

“Naw—we left those right where we found ’em.”

Never mind that the guards could smell goblin on us at all. But three days later? Impressive—and more than a bit daunting. I must have been thinking that once I got my bearings, I could help myself to some supplies, slip off, and find my way back to the Fortifications. Now, though, I saw that if I ever got past the barricades, an orc could track me down faster than a bloodhound.

The female guard rounded the wagon and peered inside. “Just the three humans?”

“That’s it,” Borkul assured her.

“Okay, then—you’re cleared to enter.”

“Praise Ul-Rott,” Borkul murmured, and Marok tugged the yoke, nudging the team toward the gate.

Travelers were challenged all the time on their way into the Fortifications, so that was nothing new. But something about the whole exchange still struck me as odd. On the road, Marok had seemed to be the one calling the shots. And yet, at the gate…. “Why didn’t the guards talk to you?”

“What did I say about asking questions?” he huffed. “We’re not out in the woods anymore. In the chieftain’s lodge, if you want to keep your tongue, you shut your damn mouth.”

I sensed that he was nowhere near as worried about my tongue as he claimed to be. More likely, he didn’t want to answer the question.

Given the heads, I was expecting to find some barbaric, freakish tableau inside the gates. But the village was not only devoid of random dismembered body parts—it was surprisingly neat. The structures were all made of wood, but they were nothing like the filthy scrap wood shantytowns in the poor districts of the Fortifications.

The dirt streets of the shantytowns ran with muck, with all the residents flinging their chamber pots out the doors with no concern for where the waste landed. Feral dogs roamed the winding alleyways hunting for rats. And the buildings were stacked so close together, most of them sharing at least one wall, that when someone knocked over a candle, half the neighborhood went up.

The orc village was built with exacting care. Each building was the same size, laid out to a precise grid. And each wall was constructed from stripped logs clearly chosen for their uniformity. Not only were the streets laid with cobblestones…there wasn’t a single emptied chamber pot to be found.

We passed a few dozen small homes and made our way deeper into the village. The buildings here were bigger—communal spaces. Smoke rose from both clay ovens and a smithy’s forge. Orcs hauled buckets from a well. A wheelwright banged some spokes into place. Normal things. Yet not normal at all, because everyone worked with a notable sense of purpose—and a profound air of discipline.

There was no haggling, no gambling, no shifty beggar lingering in the shadows hoping to relieve someone of their purse. No doubt I had questions. But even if I were dumb enough to voice them after being repeatedly warned to keep my mouth shut, I couldn’t have quite articulated what my question was.

We followed the cobblestone road to the center of the village, where a group of orcs waiting to greet us stood around a bonfire. A colorful canopy had been erected beside it—nothing at all like the silks in the Fortification fairgrounds, but just as well made. Beneath the canopy, elaborately decked out in feathers and carved bones, a figure sprawled on a sedan chair. This orc, I realized, was the first one I’d seen sitting down…though I didn’t think it was due to his station. As we neared, I saw he was not simply old—he was ancient.

He sat with his eyes closed. As we approached, he tilted his head back and sniffed the air, lips parted to let the scent play over his tongue. “You’ve brought the human,” he said. “No…you’ve got more than one.”

He opened his eyes, and I saw they were the blind, pale, milky green of an overboiled egg.

“Kneel,” Marok told me as he folded to one knee. I did the same as Borkul hopped down from the wagon and joined us on the hard cobblestone. Eyes downcast, he told the old man, “Taruut the Wise...we are unworthy of your blessing.”

I’d presumed the blind orc was their chieftain, so I was surprised when he waved a negligent hand and said, “My blessing means nothing. I’m just an old shaman who’s overstayed his time in the world.”

Borkul said, “You honor us with your attention.”

“You brought me the human boy, did you not?” He gave a dry chuckle. “I’d hardly turn you away.”

Four strong orcs stood around the shaman, all decorated with feathers, wearing streaks of white paint on each cheek. With a wave of their master’s hand, they all moved as one to hoist his litter. “Bring me to him,” the shaman said, and without a verbal cue of any sort, somehow they knew exactly which way to walk.

They rounded the wagon and stood patiently, holding the orc and his bulky litter waist-high, so he was level with the wooden platform. The shaman sniffed again. Borkul shoved me in the shoulder and whispered, “Don’t stare.” I quickly followed his example and planted my eyes front and center.

“Well, the boy’s pretty far gone, isn’t he?” the shaman asked no one in particular. “I suppose I don’t have much time.”

For what?

Even I knew better than to ask.

“And his hair?” the shaman prompted.

Borkul said, “As you foretold. Bright like a copper penny.”

“Good. And don’t worry, Marok—yes, I know you’re there, even if you haven’t dared open your mouth. I’ll put in a good word for you with Ul-Rott.”

Marok finally spoke. “But what about the other humans?”

“Bah, I have no time for them now, what with the boy half-dead. Until I get around to their purification, you’re stuck with them yourself.”