Smeg, tired of the jeering he was now being subjected to, picked up a nearby stone and hurled it at the deer. It was a hard throw—he almost made it—but the river was wide. The stone landed in the water with a splash, close enough to the deer to send out ripples that touched its hooves. The deer startled, as if from a trance, then turned, stumbled, and loped off into the trees, leaving us all staring after it in silence.
Was it injured? I hadn’t seen a wound, but then again, it had been some ways off…
An orcish whoop sounded behind me and I turned to find a couple of the toadies splashing away through the shallowstoward a massive fishing net. A huge catfish thrashed hard. But the more it struggled, the tighter the stranglehold.
I wasn’t about to wonder whether I might learn something from its example.
“That’s a nice fat one,” Smeg said. It was so strong, even two orcs could hardly manage to subdue it. Smeg waded out to help them, and between the three of them, they got hold of the thing and bashed its head in on a rock.
“The net,” the gnoll slave called out, pointing.
Too late. As soon as the toadies had let go of the fishing net to conquer the catfish, the current snatched the net away. It was already far downstream.
Fishing nets are vital to feeding a ship’s crew. The same could be said for this clan.
Especially at the cusp of winter.
The net snagged briefly on the branch of a protruding log, but before anyone bothered swimming out to retrieve it, the river took over…and the net was whisked away by the moving waters.
Pilgrim summoned me with a sharp whistle. “Someone will have to tell the quartermaster. You have the honor, since he’s so taken with you.”
I glanced back at the river, where the toadies were giving the catfish a few more good whacks, and arguing about who’d get which part.
I said, “It’ll go a lot smoother if I bring him the fish.”
Pilgrim might be cruel, but he wasn’t stupid. He ordered his men to hand the catfish over. I could feel their seething hatredwash over me as they glared at me with their beady little orcish eyes. Good thing I didn’t care what any of those beasts thought of me.
I trudged my way back to the larders with the brained fish dead weight in my arms. The guards were amused when they saw me. “That fish is as big as you,” one of them chortled, while the other one mockingly offered, “Need help, little man?”
“Is Trawg here?” I asked. “I need to see him.”
One of the guards chuckled. “Why? You want him to meet your new girlfriend?”
It was a weak insult. Besides, I hardly thought we were comrades—but humiliation burned in my cheeks nonetheless.
Worse yet, even as I swallowed down my anger, a guard’s foot shot out to trip me. I stumbled, but didn’t go down. Catfish scales are smooth, which makes them especially slippery, and I struggled to keep the thing from landing guts-down on the gritty flagstones.
Ignoring the guards’ barks of laughter, I got the fish under control, toed open the heavy wooden door, and stepped into cool dimness of the larder. The shelves were just as full as before, brimming with baskets and jars, with kegs lining the walls, and dried herbs and jerky dangling from the rafters like wind chimes. By the light of a lantern, the quartermaster Trawg stood by a chopping block with a pile of charred bones at his side and a massive cleaver in his hand. He brought the blade down and a thick bone cracked open wide, revealing ruby red marrow inside. He glanced up at me in annoyance, then brightened when he saw I was struggling with a fish big enough to feed several orcs.
“The head is pulped,” he complained, but I suspected it was just because he was unwilling to seem grateful to a human. “Well, set it on that counter and I’ll get to it next,” he said, then went back to his bone-cracking.
I heaved the heavy fish onto the counter, then cleared my throat. “The thing is,” I said, “we did gain a fish—but in his struggles, he tore the net loose.”
Trawg paused mid-chop, cleaver raised. His hand trembled.
I backed up a step. Orcs aren’t known for controlling their rage.
“We were lucky the fish didn’t get away too,” I said.
With a heavy sigh, Trawg set down the cleaver. Either he was more self-possessed than I’d thought, or not nearly as angry. “Well, your people lost the net—and don’t give me that nonsense about us all being the same. You can replace it.”
“But—”
“There’s cording and sinew behind the armory.”
I headed over and reminded myself I was lucky he hadn’t had me flogged.
The village blacksmith thought only an idiot would lose such a big net—given the dopes who’d let it float away, I didn’t disagree—but in the interest of keeping the clan fed, he would let his slave help me, since she was a hard worker with clever hands, and he clearly didn’t trust me to even tie a single knot.
