“I’ve never said that toyou, have I?”
No, but he often claimed to be fine whenever Droko managed to offend him. In fact, he said it very loudly. With a dangerous edge to his voice.
I shrugged.
Archie turned to a pot simmering on a low brazier where herbs steeped in wine. He strained it into a bottle through a bit of cloth, stoppered the bottle, and gave it a shake. “For all that we speak the same language, you greenfolk can be surprisingly tone deaf. Think with your ears for a change instead of your nose. It’s not always what you say, but how you say it.”
He took the pips from me and slotted them among the other medicinal plants, then cast the pods onto the flame, where they smoked gently and filled the chamber with the sweet scent of earth. Then he handed me a tray filled with all the various concoctions he’d just created. “Come along, then, and help me in the infirmary, and I can puzzle out why you’re suddenly in need of a human interpreter.” He waved a hand toward a stockpile of jars. “And bring that pile of remedies I’ve been slaving over with you.”
Archie truly had been hard at work. His compounds filled dozens of the huge clay vessels. It was more than I could carry alone, but the young guard stationed in the hall wouldn’t make anything of our conversation.The thing about Grok is he’s dumbas a rock, the men always said. But he would do as he was told without asking any questions.
Grok and I hauled the jars along behind Archie, who carried just a single bottle. The infirmary was at the end of a long, winding passage hewed into the stone by underground rivers long gone. The walls gleamed with moisture and the floor sloped down. The passage opened into a broad room with a natural basin in the floor. If the caves were hotter than a sweaty ballsack at the height of summer, the infirmary was a ballsack in a stewpot.
The stone slabs surrounded the basin had been put there by Taruut so he didn’t have to stoop down to tend the wounded on the ground. Initially, Archie had tried to pad them out with rushes to make them more “comfortable,” but the plants quickly grew moldy in the damp heat. One slab held a warrior who’d been gutted by a hobgoblin in the recent battle—he was unlikely to pull through, but you never know. On another lay Ulka…shivering as though she was on a long guard duty at the height of winter.
I thought orcs didn’t get sick.
Archie approached the slab and uncorked his potion. “Okey doke, hope you’re thirsty—”
“You again?” Ulka snarled. Her words were slurred. “I want the shaman.”
“And as I’ve so patiently explained, Ul-Rott wants him just as much as you do…so you’re getting me. Now, open wide and take your medicine.” He spoke brusquely, but lowered the flask to her mouth with great care.
“Tastes like goblin piss,” Ulka muttered.
And then…something clicked. Back at the feast, thegoblinslave—his flagon was so familiar to him, it was more like an extension of his arm. Just like Ulka and her bow. He’d never once dropped it—until then. I scanned the chamber, but he wasn’t there. Of course not. No one would deem a slave worthy of the attention of Droko the Mystic.
“Izzat you, Kof?” Ulka’s voice was weak. “C’mere, come closer.” She gestured for me, and her hand was sure. For a heartbeat, I thought that Archie’s potion must be working. But then she began to shake even harder than before.
I didn’t want to go anywhere near her. I couldn’t stand the sight of a proud fighter brought low without so much as a single blow from an enemy. But we were old friends, even if it was so long ago I didn’t quite remember. And so I approached her.
Ulka said, “How many days and nights you must have stewed in these caves while your empty eye socket festered. I don’t know how you could stand it. Someone should slit my throat so they can carry me out and toss me on the pyre.”
“Don’t say that,” I snapped. “You could be fine when you wake up tomorrow.”
Fine, as in adequate? Or fine, as in a word I chose because I didn’t want to say what I truly meant…which was that Quinn’s notions of tainted game were haunting me. And that if Ulka went to sleep, I wasn’t so sure she would wake up again.
Ulka’s head lolled as she shivered. I thought maybe sleep would take her after all, but then she said, “Remember when you convinced me to let you put your hands up my shirt?”
I had no memory of this. Not even a glimmer. Luckily, it didn’t seem she expected a response. She went on, “I thoughtwe’d eventually marry. But when you went into Taruut’s caves, you never came out again. It was for the best. I had a good husband. Strong and proud.”
Her husband had fallen in battle many years ago. “He was a capable warrior,” I agreed.
“Besides…you’re not the same as you were, anyhow.”
I’d had enough of dredging up the past. But Ulka’s malady saved me from having to say so. Her breath hitched and she went rigid, back arching up off the slab like her strung bow. Her body twisted painfully, then collapsed back on the stone.
I figured she was unconscious. But her words were clear enough when she spoke again. “I know where this curse came from.”
Did she? If our best hunter backed up Quinn’s ideas about the tainted meat, the quartermaster would surely take notice. “Tell me.”
“The human,” she said. I was so sure she was agreeing with Quinn, it took a moment for me to realize she wasn’t talking about him at all. “Those strange markings all over his body—him so eager to touch the chieftain’s table. Anyone can see he’s cursed.”
She blamed Eli.
“He’s not cursed.”
“But those markings—”
