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With every step, I’m breaking into pieces that no passage of time will mend. Yet I force myself forward, desperate for the chance to see Doug once more.
Finally, there is no more crowd in front of us. Bron moves to the side, and I find myself standing before a rope barrier. The rope is attached to stakes that form a circle separating the people from the gallows where the hanging will take place.
The wooden gallows are so much larger than they seemed from a distance, and so much more frightening.
Someone grumbles that we have cut in. Bron bares his teeth and the human spectator quiets.
Orcs wearing the imperial uniform patrol inside the circle, hands on the clubs at their waists should any spectators get out of hand. From the left, a phalanx of orc guards march into the open space. My breath catches as, for a moment, I see Doug between them. Taller than his guards, he cuts an imposing figure; his white skin glistening in the sun. I reach out to hold onto the rope barrier as I strain for my next glimpse of him, and a reckless compulsion grips me.
A thick arm clamps around my waist before I realize my intentions. I thrash against it. Consequence be damned, I need to hold Doug one more time.
“Behave, foolish human,” Bron growls. “Do you want his last memory to be of you being beaten down by the guards? For that is what they shall do, without hesitation, if you try to go to him.”
My eyes shift to the orcs surrounding Doug. I see the way they assess the crowd, clubs at the ready in their hands. And it is not only them. The orcs who patrol the barrier watch with similar menace in their eyes, searching for any opportunity to deal with trouble.
The fight goes out of me, and fresh tears well in my eyes.
Bron releases me.
The grim reality sets in: when the sun sets tonight, Doug will be gone.
* * *
Doug
My mother is a bitch. I understood this from a very young age. It wasn’t even that she rejected me. That seems of little consequence now. It was the many acts of cruelty she meted out over my life, leading right up to now. That happiness was mine so briefly is the bitterest blow of all.
The orcs escorting me come to a stop before the steps to the gallows. A faint tremble manifests in my hands, tied securely at my back, as I see the fate that looms before me.
I will not shame myself as I face my end, nor will I give my mother an opportunity to call me weak. Resplendent in her finest battle armor, she stalks to stand in front of me, accompanied by the old executioner orc, who will fit the noose around my throat.
She sneers at me. “Finally, I will rid myself of the abomination that bastard’s seed grew inside me.” With a nod to the judicial, she steps back, and he steps forward.
The crowd falls silent as he begins to read from a rolled parchment; his voice, practiced at such events, carries over the nearby spectators. The rest of them who are gathered here don’t care whether they hear or not, so long as they can see. The words will go through iterations as they gossip and it’s most likely that, by the time the stories reach the corners of Krug, I will no longer be an orc who killed the bastard who tried to touch his mate but some kind of monster who slaughtered children in their sleep.
The words wash over me. My mind is elsewhere, thinking about gentle, feminine hands. I cling to that memory lest my thoughts go to how orcs are sturdy and can hang for half a day or more before being delivered to death and the great pain I will suffer as I slowly fade.
I promised myself I wouldn’t look, yet my eyes have a will of their own and search the crowd.
I don’t want her to be here, to see me like this, yet the moment I see her, I am lost in her pretty eyes, fucking hating all the sorrow I see there.
She came.
She said she loves me—loves us.
My knees nearly give. I stumble a half step forward before I catch myself. The guards around me are wary, with their clubs at the ready. Not that I can fucking do much, unarmed, bound, and surrounded by so many. They settle their stance when I make no further move, and I drink my fill of my mate. In the bright sunlight, she is a vision of dark beauty. There is no heaven waiting for orcs when we die, yet while Jasmine was in my arms, I found that elusive place to which humans aspire to ascend.
My inner beast rails.
They have bound my wrists to facilitate the hanging, lest I hold tight to the rope when the trapdoor drops, and interfere with the deed. Yet as I stand here, in my last moment, I become aware that my other side is no more ready for death than I am, that if these bindings were not in place, he would smash through the guards, snatch Jasmine up, and run. The orc side of me understands the dangers in such an undertaking, that Jasmine could be hurt or, worse, killed, and that we are in the middle of a huge city with nowhere to hide.
Regardless, my beast still thrashes beneath the surface, great tusks swinging from side to side in my mind before lifting his snout to offer a deep, mournful bay.
Trent. I should have killed the bastard before, only done so discreetly. I’d known he was a threat, and that he had his eye on Jasmine. Bron had warned me as much.
I wish she had trusted me.
I take comfort that he is gone, and I have eliminated the threat.
