A flicker of satisfaction crossed Pilgrim’s face. I did my best to act like I hadn’t seen the fleeting look. It was easy enough to act like I’d given up hope—because there truly was no way out for me. I’d made my peace with it.
All that mattered was that when I did eventually go down, I took him out first.
I stole off to the larders without challenge. Orc villages were strange that way. In all the normal human ports I’d seen, there was always some sort of militia or night watch—some trying to keep the peace, others just hoping to score a bribe. But orcs learn young that when punishment comes, it’s swift, and it’s brutal. Because of that, their settlements are surprisingly safe.
Unfortunately, the Red Hand Clan apparently drew the line at leaving their food stores unguarded. An armed orc stood beside the door of the thatch-roofed building, while another marched around its perimeter. And as soon as I rounded the corner and sighted them, the cutting night breeze carried my scent to their ugly snouts.
Well, the harmless human card had gotten me this far. Might as well keep playing it. “E-excuse me—is this the pantry? I was looking for something to eat but then I got all turned around.”
The door guard motioned me forward and his pal joined him. Given that they all look the same, I immediately forgot who was who. “How ‘bout that? Little pinkie here is hungry.”
They both looked pointedly at my crotch and sniggered.
Of course they’d been at the welcome feast. The whole clan had been there.
I swallowed down my humiliation. “Please—I didn’t get anything to eat tonight.”
Hopefully I hadn’t laid on the pathetic act too thick. Because what kind of idiot would ever expect compassion from an orc?
“Not my problem,” said one. “Take it up with your chieftain.”
I nearly said that Pilgrim was the one who’dsentme, but quickly course-corrected, since we supposedly have no chieftain. And then I thought of something even more likely to get me what I wanted. “I’m with the Lost Clan—your chieftain is my chieftain. So, I should go ask Ul-Rott?”
The guards glanced at each other uneasily. Invoking the Lost Clan gets that reaction a lot. Technically, they should receive all the perks of being a clan member, and it’s unheard of to deny them. The guards bent their heads together to confer. Then one of them grudgingly said, “There’s a scrap bucket by the door. Make it quick.”
I supposed I should count myself lucky they didn’t check my bung to make sure I wasn’t smuggling in any poison.
The door swung shut behind me, and inside the building, a lantern burned low. Orcs aren’t exactly subtle, so I didn’t even need my eyes to adjust to know I was alone. So much for my plan to glean information from the quartermaster. Hopefully, I could find something to report. Any bit of information Pilgrim didn’t have before could prove my worth somehow and keep me in his good graces.
Maybe it was a relief the quartermaster wasn’t there. He’d been unlikely to help me anyhow—his disdain for me had been obvious. A tally of the stores would gain me more trustworthy information than anything I could hope to get from that squinty old orc.
I scanned my surroundings for something useful. The larder was tidy and organized inside—most orcish buildings are—but the smell of fermenting things and strange herbs permeated the close air. It wasn’t like sea rations, all salt pork and hardtack. Hopefully, if there was anything useful to report, I’d know it when I saw it. Maybe I’d find they had nothing but fish to offer. Or maybe they truly were hiding some prize stag. Or maybe….
I rounded a corner, and there, mounted on the far wall, a rack of knives gleamed by the lantern’s light.
My breath caught.
The collection was arranged carefully, from the largest cleaver to the most slender boning knife. I blinked, as if the blades might disappear like a tantalizing mirage. But when I opened my eyes again, they were still right there…right within my grasp.
There was no need to appease Pilgrim after all. Not if I could simply end him.
Heart pounding, I crept up to the knives. I might very well be able to roll the smallest blade into the hem of my sarong. The garment might hang funny, but I had to try. All I had to do was act like I had big news, which would gain me an opportunity to speak to Pilgrim before anyone noticed and took it away.
Quick on my feet, I slipped across the room. My mind was on the knife, planning, strategizing—how to secure it, where todraw it, when to make my move—so the footfall behind me caught me entirely by surprise. I whirled around, and there, silhouetted by the light of a lantern, lurked a big, lumbering orc.
I’d know Smeg anywhere, even in silhouette. And of course Pilgrim had sent him to follow me. I was a fool to think he’d give me even a scrap of trust. I cringed back into the cutting board, realizing that I’d never been so fully alone with Smeg…and that if he decided he was done just leering at me, the guards outside wouldn’t lift a finger to help.
But as the orc stepped into the light, I saw my mind was playing tricks on me, and it wasn’t Smeg at all. Not only was that ever-present sword absent from his hip…but a wicked scar covered the socket where one eye should have been.
It was the massive guard from the feast—the one who’d been pawing at my sarong.
How had I been so sure it was Smeg? Had Pilgrim’s latest silence gotten under my skin? No—other than the eye, this one and Smeg, their statures were practically the same.
I felt a moment of relief that my reckoning with Smeg wasn’t yet upon me…but then the orc’s nostrils flared.
He couldsmellme. Even from ten paces away.
The plan to seduce my way into the larder had been nothing more than a way to make myself look useful, but now I might very well need to make good on that hair-brained scheme. It wouldn’t be my first time lying with a man, of course—even before I took up with the captain, there’d been plenty of willing hands and mouths among the crew. But I’d considered myself lucky to have spent a year among orcs without ever having to endure one’s seed oozing from my bottom.
