Page 9 of Warlord's Mate
“Thanks.” Marcy dropped her grub-maggot into the small pot and went in search for another. “My name is Marcy.” She looked up after pulling another squirming worm free. “What’s yours?”
The blue alien opened her mouth to answer but held her tongue when someone walked by where they were sitting.
“You’re not here to talk. Do your job and keep your mouth shut!”
The three alien women stared down at their laps and didn’t say another word. Marcy sighed and went back to pulling the wevolts out of the animal hide while taking small glances around the camp.
The aliens here varied by species. She had no idea what they were or where they came from but some of them were terrifying to look at. She made sure not to make eye contact with any of them just in case they saw it as a sign she was interested in them.
A large circle filled with ash and half burned wood sat in the center of camp and just behind it, butted up next to the trees, was a raised platform. A chair large enough to sit two people sat in the center of it. A dais for the king? She snorted a laugh. This warlord must like being the center of attention.
Screams echoed across the camp moments before several shocked gasps filled the air. An alien standing a few feet away from them was suddenly lifted from the ground, his feet flying out from under him for a brief second before falling flat to his back. A large poll protruded from his chest and it wasn’t until the blue female at her side grabbed her arm and started dragging her away that Marcy realized they were under attack.
Chaos erupted in camp within seconds. Screams and shouts of anger rose to fill the air as Marcy ran with the other females to the safety of the trees behind the warlord’s throne.
They ducked down in the thick foliage. Marcy laid in the tall grasses for several minutes trying to catch her breath. The sky was filled with those small orbs that saw everything here, all of them hovering above the camp to record the fight. She raised her head to see what was happening and flinched as an alien next to the dais lost his head.
It was obvious some of the aliens in the warlord’s camp were fighters, while others were not. She had no idea who belonged to the warlord’s camp and who the invaders were so kept her head down as to not be seen.
“Why are we being attacked? Who are these people?” She looked to the other females when no one answered and saw them watching what was happening with the same shocked expressions on their faces that she was sure was on her own.
The blue alien crawled closer to where she sat. “I do not know why they are here. As for who they are, if I had to guess, I would say they are from the Alerrawia.”
“What is that?”
“Another clan. Their warlord is Allok.”
Marcy’s head swung her way. “There’s another warlord?”
“Yes. I know of three other warlords on Prison Moon One, but there are rumors of many more. Each oversees their own territory but they try to claim more on occasion. The warlord Allok has territory that borders our own, and he has been the cause of trouble for many lunar cycles. There is great rivalry between him and Jorrick.”
“And who is Jorrick?”
“He is the warlord who claimed you as his own but never call him by name. To you, he is simply, warlord.”
As if summoned by the mere mention of his name, Marcy saw him through the trees. The long blade he’d had strapped to his hip was now in his hand as he swung it toward an alien nearly as big as he was. The clash of weapons, most primitive, echoed through the camp, as did the grunts and loud yells of battle.
Marcy sat up on her knees when the warlord moved out of her line of sight. She craned her neck until she caught a small glimpse of him. The blade in his hands swung with enough force it nearly cleaved the head from the alien he was fighting. The warlord raised a leg, his booted foot hitting the alien in the chest to kick him away before spinning on his heel to attack another.
As she watched the men in camp fight, she knew escaping was pointless. According to the blue alien, Prison Moon One was divided into sections and each ruled by a different warlord. As frightening as the warlord Jorrick was, what if he wasn’t the most brutal of them? The thought of someone scarier than him was terrifying but if Jorrick was the biggest bad on Prison Moon One—then he’d no doubt kill her for even trying to escape and he didn’t look like a, kill ‘em quickly, kind of guy. Like it or not, she was stuck—owned by a warlord who scared the hell out of her.
An alien she was still trying to see in the surrounding chaos.
An alien who was causing her pulse to race, despite her fear of him.
An alien who now owned her.
The fighting ended as abruptly as it had started and Marcy and the other females never moved until the aliens in camp started to make a noise she assumed was laughter.
She rose to her feet with the others and walked out from behind the warlord’s dais and surveyed the camp. Not much had been destroyed. One of the tents was leaning to one side and broken pottery and baskets lay strewn across the ground.
Several aliens lay unmoving, dead if the gaping wounds she saw on them were any indication. The aliens still on their feet were covered in blood and fluids in various colors but they all seemed to be laughing, as if the brutal fight she’d seen was nothing but a game to them.
The female alien that reminded her of a wingless fairy righted the baskets they had been sitting around, the wevolts that had been spilled from their bowls picked up and put back in their place.
Slowly, the females started cleaning the camp and as much as she hated to clean, she did the same knowing she’d be made to do so, eventually.
Her arms were full of broken pottery when she saw the warlord walk back into camp. Her pulse leaped again at the sight of him. He’d been frightening the first time she saw him, now he looked positively barbaric.