Page 24 of Wed to the Orc Captive

It was like I’d been caught in the song, like those feelings had come up, too raw and near, and the grief crushed down, like I wasn’t a grown woman strolling through woods but a child watching a doll tear apart. I sang after it, higher, sharper, faster, calling it back. I needed it to come back. The bushes rustled again, and I didn’t listen. I was moving through the brush, till I saw that little flash of red again. Its eyes were on me. I held out my hand, and I sang the last notes. A plea.

And as the bird lit on my finger, I realized we weren’t alone. Creatures watched from the brambles and the bracken, from shadows and trees’ limbs, foxes and little shrews and squirrels, thrushes and larks with their beady eyes. Pink touched the sky overhead, and from the other side of the clearing, Vrathgar regarded me, his expression shuttered, his movements only caution.

And from the woods behind me, another voice, high and piping, echoed my song, a warbling yelp like a child’s voice, but wrong.

“Annora get back!”

I didn’t comprehend the shape until it slammed into me. I sprawled onto the forest floor, a bird the size of a horse leaning over me, its body like an ink blot under its lizard-like neck.

It shrieked as Vrathgar lunged in, and one of those blades was crimson in the light. It was still on its feet, still watching from where it had pulled back.

And it was not alone.

Inky shapes loomed in the dawn. Five, six— “Can you speak to them?” he demanded.

“What? No!”

“Worth a shot.” He shoved the pack at me, so heavy I almost tumbled back. “Keep it in front of your organs.”

“What are they?”

“Wizards’ work.”

And then two of them attacked.

It took me too long to realize the screaming was me.

They came from the sides. Vrathgar sliced one of them and roared, his other sword wheeling to keep the talons at a distance. But neither seemed perturbed. The lot of them, vast shadows in the murk, circled, testing.

Each of them loomed at least eight feet tall.

Beaks stabbed down again.

Vrathgar slashed out, two swords, and they barely withdrew, regarded him with cold, alien eyes, one’s face bleeding.

All my focus was on the beaks, on the heaviness of the pack in my arms and those serpentine necks rising over us, the deep, clicking sounds from their throats. Maybe Vrathgar forgot the talons, too.

The first one rushed, and he drove it back with a scream. Now his thigh was bleeding.

“You magicked them in,” he shouted. “Can you magick them away?”

“I don’t know!” A beak slammed against the pack. Another grazed my arm.

He swung out both swords, again. Again. Roared, “Try!”

I tried. I grasped at a few notes, a lilting melody. It sounded ridiculous, alongside the guttural clucks of the monsters, Vrathgar’s growls, the ring of the blades. His grunt as a talon scored his arm.

One of the birds hopped back, dark blood copper in the light.

“Sing harder!” he screamed.

I forced the sound louder, my voice cracking. I tried to sing at the birds, but Gods, why would they listen? Why beg evil to leave? Why yell “please” at something that could take your life away with a snap? My voice pitched and crackled, off, wrong.

His swords struck flesh again. I heard him grunt in pain, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I heard in my hoarse, broken melody a fragment of the foolish plea that got us into this mess, the plea to the robin. Don’t leave me alone, please…

The clearing went quiet. I opened my eyes. The birds’ heads turned away from us, lifted high. Listening.

Not to me.