My recollection of that time was dim, at best.
“Nothing to say?” Ulka let her hand drop to her side. “Back then, you would have made a joke, asked me if the lizard gotaway. The old Kof had a comeback for everything—always the first to get into trouble and the first to talk his way out. You’re so different now.”
All those years in the shaman’s service would change anyone. “That was a long time ago.”
“I suppose it was,” Ulka said.
But she didn’t seem all that satisfied with my answer.
5
Eli
The lid of my box creaked open and an orc’s silhouette filled my field of vision—and then Smeg’s leering face came into focus. “Wake up, little morsel. It’s time to get ready for the feast.”
I’d been dreaming, kind of. Riding around in the box was like being below decks on a choppy sea, if you focused on the jostling sensation and the creak of wood. I wanted nothing more than to pull the lid shut and lose myself in my memories, and pretend I was anywhere else.
But I was here. And this was how things were, now.
Though hopefully not for much longer.
I sat up and stretched. I might seem tiny to an orc, but I’d seen twenty-one summers—had it been a whole year I’d been with the Lost Clan? Twenty-two. Anyway, I was a grown man, and my limbs didn’t take kindly to being crammed into that box. I’d spent hours curled on my side, and now my back twanged as I unfolded myself.
We were inside a neat wooden dwelling. No one around but Smeg and a couple of Pilgrim’s sycophants. No furniture to speak of, so I could presume we were in the orc village. “Whose house is this?” I asked.
“Ours, for now.” Smeg pulled a silk tassel from a chest he’d been pawing through and hung it off the scabbard of his ridiculous sword.
Pilgrim strode out of the next room, trying a leather bracer on for size. “Cramped quarters. But they’ll do.”
By orc standards, the house was massive. Maybe if he sent a few of his toadies out to sleep in the communal barracks with the rest, he’d have more elbow room. Pilgrim had favors to dole out, though, and he was nothing if not strategic. Favoring just a handful of the clan ensured their loyalty, while giving all the others something to work toward.
“Who lived here before?” I asked.
“Someone careless enough to get between a pair of pissed-off hobgoblins,” Pilgrim said. “Now shut up and get ready for the feast. I’ve got a target for you.”
I liked it better when I was shut in the box. “Who is it?”
“Their chieftain. He didn’t bother to greet us—he hurried off to conjure up some kind of nasty mojo against us with his shaman. You need to figure out what it is.”
“So…you want me to ingratiate myself to the chieftain, or the shaman?”
A few of the toadies snorted.
Smeg said, “The chieftain, dummy. Shamans don’t think with their dicks.”
“Besides,” Pilgrim said, “they say Ul-Rott already has a pretty human in his stable. So we know he likes ’em pink.”
“Or maybe it’s the chieftain’s wife who’s got a taste for the wee grubs,” Smeg speculated.
“Whoever,” Pilgrim said. “We need eyes and ears inside the lodge. If either one takes a shine to you, you’re in.”
So this was it, then. I’d been on display long enough. A curiosity. A distraction. Nothing more. But now the novelty had worn off, and they’d decided it was time to put me through my paces.
I’d suspected this day would come…it was only a matter of time. I’d just figured I would be gone before now—face down in the dirt, with Pilgrim bleeding out beside me.
If only I could get my hands on a blade.
I stripped out of my clothes, ignoring the way the orcs’ nearsighted gazes fell on me—or trying to, anyhow. Pilgrim handed me a ridiculous wisp of a silken sarong. It was a rich, exotic blue, woven through with threads of pale green. A bit threadbare, a bit stained. But it left nothing to the imagination, especially what I normally kept hidden: my tattoos.
