“So if I’m pretending to be your…mate,” she finally said to his back, her voice unnaturally loud in the silence, “perhaps I should know a little more about you?”
The orc’s shoulders instantly stiffened beneath his pack, and he shot a brief, disapproving frown over his shoulder. “Such as?”
Geva bit back her sigh, and gave an all-consuming wave of her hand. “Your background?” she replied testily. “Your family? Your highly questionable life choices? Why you’re returning to your home? Gods, even yourname?”
She felt her face flushing as she spoke, because yes, indeed, she’d sucked him off without even knowing his damnedname— and she could see his steps faltering, his hand dragging through his hair, as his stiff shoulders fell, and rose, and fell again.
“I am… Rathgarr,” he said, quiet. “Of Clan Ash-Kai.”
Rathgarr, of Clan Ash-Kai. The name clearly from another language, theRs rolling with fluid ease in his smooth, deep voice. Enough that Geva felt a highly unwelcome dip in her belly, her throat swallowing hard, her response rising all on its own.
“I’m Geva,” she said, allowing her parents’ familiar accent to slip into her voice. “Geva Okoro.”
The orc — Rathgarr — jerked a nod, his eyes angling briefly over his shoulder toward her. And for an instant, Geva almost thought he might offer a genuine reply. Might acknowledge, perhaps, that they had this in common. Raised speaking another tongue, hearing tales of another world…
But instead the orc —Rathgarr— just kept walking, his steps swift, his face held straight ahead. Not even making an attempt at answering any of her other questions, and Geva drew in a deep, fortifying breath, let it out. One month, and then the sea.
“Perhaps you could tell me more about Orc Mountain, then?” she asked, as steadily as she could. “What is it like? Is it really as awful as all the tales say?”
But Rathgarr didn’t even look at her this time, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he was walking faster, too. “It is a mountain,” he said flatly. “With orcs inside it.”
Well, that wasn’t promising, and neither was the way he suddenly veered sideways off the path, straight into the thick brush. And Geva doubtfully watched him grow smaller and smaller before she finally gritted her teeth, clutched up her skirts, and picked her way after him through the long grasses and bushes. Which were rapidly thinning again, giving way to —
Oh. A road. The main road leading southwest, perhaps. And one that was in heavy use, judging by the steady stream of horses, carts, and foot travellers passing by.
“You really mean to travel on theopen road?” Geva asked, her voice too sharp. “Is that really advisable? Or…safe, for an orc?”
Rathgarr shot her a baleful look before striding off again, straight toward the road’s dirt-packed edge. “It shall never be safe, if no orc does this,” he snapped back. “Doyouwish to toil through brush and muck for all these next five days?”
Geva couldn’t help a pained glance down toward her already-compromised skirts, and then she huffed an exasperated sigh, and hurried to catch up again. Earning a mocking grunt from Rathgarr as she fell into step beside him, though she valiantly kept her chin lifted, her gaze fixed straight ahead.
However, her doubts about this mode of travel soon proved to be entirely justified, because their presence caused an almost instantaneous response from their fellow travellers on the road. Nearly all of them staring stunned and slack-jawed toward Geva and Rathgarr, and several already muttering, or pointing, or both.
“Is that anorc?” an approaching man demanded in a shrill, scandalized voice. “With awoman? Is that evenallowed?!”
“Most certainly not,” sniffed his companion, an older woman with unfriendly eyes. “He’s likely kidnapped her. Ought to be reported to the authorities.”
Geva’s face already felt painfully hot, her uneasy eyes glancing sideways toward Rathgarr. Who was still staring straight ahead, his jaw taut, his hand now clenched to his sword-hilt. “Pay them no heed,” he muttered, under his breath. “Most of them only stare, and prattle thus.”
Mostof them? Geva’s previous irritation toward him was rapidly fading, in favour of sheer incredulous outrage — that peace-treatywasstill in place, wasn’t it? — when from up ahead came the distinct sound of a high-pitched yelp. “It’s an orc!” squealed a young woman, while clutching for dear life to a second woman beside her. “With a victim! He’s coerced her!Kidnappedher!”
And despite Rathgarr’s order from only a moment before, Geva could feel his big body stiffening beside her, his breath hissing out in a sound much like a growl. A sentiment she rather found herself sharing, to the point where she glared straight back toward the women, her gaze steady and cold, until they finally averted their eyes, and quickly scurried past.
Next came an older couple, who cringed away as they stared between Rathgarr and Geva, while also grumbling loudly about foul, devious orc kidnappers. And this time, before Geva had quite realized it, she’d slipped her hand around Rathgarr’s huge bicep, and flashed the couple a bright smile, together with a careless, friendly wave.
The couple instantly fell silent, and the look of pure aghast shock on their faces offered some degree of grim entertainment, if nothing else. And if Geva wasn’t mistaken, Rathgarr had heaved a slow, relieved-sounding exhale — and then even crooked his arm toward her a little. As if instead of a belligerent thief on the run to Orc Mountain, he was an upright, well-mannered man about town, politely escorting his lady to some respectable, mutually-agreed-upon engagement.
So Geva kept holding onto him, greeting the gawking passersby with smiles, waves, and even a few knowing winks. And when she handed Rathgarr her satchel, thereby freeing up her other hand for additional clinging and waving, he still didn’t protest or complain. If anything, his stiff arm had seemed to relax beneath her death-grip, and his occasional glances down toward her had begun to look reluctantly amused.
“Already working for your coin, poppet?” he murmured, his brow arching with something that might have been contempt — but Geva purposely ignored it, and gaily waved at a cluster of staring farmhands in a passing wagon. Eliciting the now-familiar expressions of shock, awe, and disbelief, and yet more stunned, blessed silence.
“Yes, I am,” she said back, under her breath. “What, would you rather I stop? Did youpreferbeing called a cruel and coercive kidnapper?”
Rathgarr huffed an unintelligible reply, but didn’t comment again. Not even once the sky had begun darkening, to the point where he might readily be mistaken for a very large man, rather than an orc. And while Geva should probably have stopped clinging to him, she couldn’t deny that his warm shifting strength was oddly comforting in the deepening blackness, especially once she could no longer make out the faces of the various strangers passing by.
“There is an inn just up ahead,” Rathgarr finally said, as he fished in his pouch for something — a coin — and pressed it into Geva’s hand. “Go eat a hot meal, and hire a room, ach? And order a bath, also.”
Geva was decidedly hungry and weary after so much walking, enough that it took a moment to digest what he’d said. He was offering her accommodation overnight… at aninn? He wasn’t demanding she camp out on a hard forest floor, with gods knew how many insects and vermin? She could have a hot meal, and abath?
