Let’s ride to the sea today, her father would say with his contagious grin, dragging both Maria and her mother tight into his big barrel chest.Let’s go cheer on that jousting-match. I wish you could come away on campaign with me too, my sweet Maria. Someday we’ll all travel the realm together, won’t we?
But even after the money, that day had never arrived. Foiled first by the accumulated injuries that had left her father bedridden, and then by the fever that had forever destroyed everything. And now, here was Maria, finally on a journey, alone and brittle and empty, and growing steadily wearier with every endless, wretched day that passed.
“You canna be wantin’ to go to that mountain, boy,” said the fourth wagon-driver she flagged down, on that miserable seventh morning. “There’s where the orcs live.Thousandsof ‘em.”
Maria hoisted up her pack — now far lighter than it had once been — and met the man’s gaze with a flinty glare of her own. “Yes, I’m aware, thanks,” she said curtly, using her father’s old accent, dropping her voice as low as it would go. “The orcs have hired me on as a trading manager. Trying to improve their routes, on account of the treaty and all.”
The man’s lip curled, his eyes flicking doubtfully up and down Maria’s grimy form. “You got coin?”
Maria silently held up her last gold coin, and after a long, suspicious look toward it, the man sighed. “I’ll take you as far as the woods,” he said, jerking his head at his hay-filled wagon. “An’ after that, you’re on your own.”
Maria nodded gratefully and clambered up behind him, sinking down into the wagon’s sweet-smelling hay. Gods, it felt good to rest, and she dropped her head onto her knees, and finally let her eyes flutter closed.
She was doing this. Granting her husband all his worst fears on a silver platter, while the entire realm pointed and laughed.
And as for what came next — or after that — Maria had found, to her vague surprise, that she didn’t particularly care. Even the threat of what she was likely to face at Orc Mountain — and what horrors were sure to be inflicted upon her person there — had oddly dwindled during her journey, sinking into a numb, distant detachment.
Perhaps she would somehow survive this. Perhaps she would somehow emerge with an income, and her freedom intact. Or perhaps, more likely, she was walking straight into her death. Either at the savage orcs’ swords, or birthing their huge, violent sons, or once they’d used her up and cast her out for good…
But it was still better than life at Warmisham House. It still gained Maria her revenge, and her husband’s public shame. And that, at this point, was all that mattered. Nothing else.
“So ‘ave you evermetan orc, boy?” cut in the driver’s voice, and when Maria glanced up, he was keenly watching her over his shoulder, ignoring his steadily plodding horse. “Are you sure you know what you’re gettin’ into?”
Maria tried for a shrug, and wiped a shaky hand at her sweaty forehead. “Sure I’ve met orcs before,” she replied, still in her accented deep voice. “Would have to, to get this deal, wouldn’t I?”
The man looked unconvinced, but Maria didn’t drop her gaze, and finally he shrugged and turned back to the road. “I’m just sayin’. Those orcs are ugly, an’ I’m not just talkin’ about their faces. Word is, they love baby-faced fellas like you. Get you trapped in that mountain, treat you just like a woman, until…”
Maria’s stomach heaved, but thankfully the man didn’t finish, and she squeezed her eyes shut, hauled in a hoarse breath. Yes, she still believed the orcs were a mistake, a waste, a glut of sheer stupidity upon the realm — but that didn’t mean all the stories weren’t true, either. Orcswerebrutal, coarse, uncivilized beasts. They were cruel and hideous and deadly. And the few orcs she’d seen in her lifetime — though usually at a distance, and usually in the midst of some gruesome public punishment — had all been huge and scarred and vicious, flailing and growling in their crude black-tongue, threatening imminent danger to all who came too close.
“An’ with theactualwomen, they’re even worse,” continued the driver, clearly undaunted by Maria’s silence. “Trapping ‘em deep underground, biting and swiving upon ‘em like beasts. Whelping as many of their spawn as the women can bear, until they’re used up an’eaten. Jus’ likehens.”
A sudden, inexplicable giddiness was bubbling in Maria’s gut — here she was, the Duchess of Warmisham, volunteering to be used up and eaten like ahen— but after a few more breaths, the panic slowly flattened again, sinking into the familiar empty resignation. She would have her revenge. Nothing else mattered.
“Well, here you go, then,” the driver said, after what felt like far too short a time. “Follow the road from here, you canna miss it.”
Maria’s bleary eyes blinked up, following the man’s pointing finger — and she felt her body snap to stillness, her heart lurching toward her throat. She was here. Already.
Orc Mountain.
It was huge and grey and craggy, its snow-capped peak soaring up over the surrounding forest, streaming multiple plumes of thick black smoke. Orc Mountain,here, at the end of this veryroad, and for an instant Maria could only stare, and fight to find her breath. She’d come this far. She would do this. Shewould.
She somehow managed to shove her shaky body off the wagon, and paid the man his promised coin. And all too soon he’d rattled away, leaving her standing alone and impoverished at the edge of a forest, and blinking up at Orc Mountain. At her revenge.
The panic was bubbling again, clawing deep inside, but Maria clamped it down, and held her eyes on the mountain’s looming bulk. She could do this. She would.
So she began walking, ignoring the aches in her sore body, the pain in her weary legs. Plodding on and on and on, step after endless step, until her feet were fully numb, and sweat streamed off her brow. And finally there were no thoughts left, no fears, only the distant darkening resignation, blunting all else under its weight. She would keep going. She would do this. She would…
The wall flashed to life without warning, rising huge and powerful before her — and Maria’s unseeing, exhausted body crashed straight into it. Into heat, strength, solid and rugged andalive, and wait, wait,wait—
She reeled back, badly staggering, blinking wild-eyed up at the wall before her — and oh gods, oh gods, it wasn’t a wall at all, it was, it was…
It was anorc.
3
The orc wasmassive.
He towered over Maria like a violent, vengeful god, his broad chest bare and battle-scarred, his deep grey torso wrapped in heavy, deadly muscle. And at his side hung a gigantic orc scimitar, a vicious curve of sharp shining steel, eager to disembowel, to devour, todestroy.
