Page 47 of Wed to the Orc Captive

“She put a blade to my back. Why should I be lenient?”

“She’s a foreigner to this place, and you threatened her husband. Wouldn’t you do the same, for Da?”

“No.” Another sound of disgust. “If someone endangered your father, I wouldn’t ‘threaten’ like a child. I would kill.” She picked up the knife in front of my face, and my heart beat to drown out the world⁠—

“Enough, Drazha,” Vrathgar’s voice commanded, cold with a fury it didn’t have before. “You know she’s not the one you care about.”

Slowly, the orcess released me. I fell gasping. Her voice sliced. “Educate your wife, boy, since you brought her here. It’ll be your neck if she sins.” Some of the venom seemed gone out of her.

I gained my feet, scrambled over to where Vrathgar stood, careful, one hand against the fireplace stone.

“Not a kidnapped child, I take it,” the orc-ess snarked.

There was no humor in Vrathgar’s face. “She kidnapped me.”

“Do you have any proof of that?”

“What proof could I have, Drazha? Do they give writs of man-stealing?” He paused. “There was one of the Droth taken with me, Balnoc. He could vouch that we were captured, and to her presence.”

“I’ll send word. We might need him.”

“Don’t I have a voice?” I’d spoken, and her eyes appraised me anew. I pressed, “If they are worried of a crime against me, I should be witness enough. Tell them my people did the thing.”

“It’s not quite that simple.” Vrathgar was staring past me, eyes still fixed on the woman with the spear.

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Drazha snorted at that, but Vrathgar just shook his head, slightly. “The Drashik are more worried about the keeping of their own traditions than about the actual people affected. Isn’t that right, Drazha?”

Her eyes were cold. “We keep the ways, and with this defend our own from outside threats. Any evils are necessary.”

He wasn’t smiling, quipped “May I be considered necessary? Since those threats ripped me open three ways already.”

“You seem to be standing just fine.”

He frowned.

“I will see that it’s spread about the fires that humans captured the rootless one. If you want to be seen as one of us and not a stealer of innocents, you will get out of this place where you’re hiding like a rat, and be seen among the people. You will take this little fool to your own house and your own blood. And when the time comes to stand before the stones,” she glared, “you will not embarrass my son.”

Vrathgar stared back. “Thank you for your understanding.”

She stalked towards the door, then paused. “What news of the Droth?” She waited, tension in the lines of her neck.

Vrathgar spoke. “They still value strength of arm, and they still make enemies wherever they tread. But the magisters bribe them towards the east.”

“Then they lie to you. The Droth will not take the wizards’ yoke.”

“They do not offer them a concord. They offer revenge on the Barrahal. The eastern lords swell their ranks with hired hordes, and now that the wizards take a side, they want orcs fighting orcs.”

She nodded. “Thank you, for your aid.”

His voice was cold. “This is my people, too.”

The door banged closed behind her.

Rowena rushed to my side. “Did she break your arm?”

“I don’t think so.”