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He gave me a piece of bread for no reason that I could determine. Although now that I think about it, maybe he was wooing me with a mind to putting me on my knees?
I decide that he is noble whether he was wooing me or not.
He is still very ugly, and I shudder at the thought of kissing him, never mind the more intimate parts of being a mate. If need be, I shall close my eyes and think about something else… like chopping vegetables, while he is doing it.
Yet it was not revulsion I experienced when he gently held my hand within his. I was a little frightened, yes, but it was also strangely comforting every time his thumb passed over the back of my hand.
It was like he was… petting me.
It made me a little fluttery low in my belly.
I toss and turn, restless, trying to conjure up my favorite dream, the one where the handsome prince comes and rescues me. At first, my dream was based around the outpost, but in this most recent iteration of the dream, the prince is joined by a noble army, and they gallantly attack the camp to free all the bondservants. He charges forth on his horse and defeats the orcs. Seeing me cowering beside a wagon where I hide, lest I be slaughtered in the fray, he pulls his horse to a stop and jumps down.
Only, this time when it gets to the part where the prince offers me his hand, it’s not a princely hand. It’s white, gnarled, and twice the size of mine.
I turn over again, disgruntled that the brutish male now invades my dreams—the well-scripted fantasy where I’m carried off to a castle to wear fancy gowns and have lots of royal babies. I sigh. Look at me, still fantasizing about the prince when practicality dictates I should pursue other routes in the interest of survival. And I do want to survive. I want to do more than that, to find happiness like my mother and father had—their obvious joy in one another and in me, their well-loved child.
They are gone now, existing only in my memory. I survive for them as much as I do for myself; for while I am here, their memory lingers on.
The more I think about Doug, the more obstacles I see. What if he does not even want a mate? What if he is kind to many lasses? Maybe many bondservants willingly go to him, for he is gentle in his ways. They would probably be glad to suck his cock for a crust of bread if he is not rough about it.
And maybe he does not even like human women in that way. Maybe he has an orc lady, given he is big, even for an orc. Maybe he’s well-liked.
Only he is lower in status than orcs, Penny said, speaking with authority… although I dare say many people speak with authority on matters of which they know nothing. The baker at the outpost told me all manner of nonsense I later found to be untrue.
Maybe Doug is held in high regard by the orcs.
Or maybe he is not. I sigh again, frustrated by the way my mind goes in circles.
I still think he’s my best choice and, further, he would not be cruel to me. So what if he is not a handsome prince? Certainly, I’m no highborn princess. I’m nothing but a bondservant; a captive of orcs. I’m not even pretty. Nobody has ever told me so, which leaves me to determine that I’m plain.
The longer I ponder upon it, the more I become resolved that I’m meant for the strange white orc.
* * *
My tentative plans to take Doug as a mate are thwarted the next morning when we are roused at dawn and ordered to pack up the tents with urgency. There is no time for mischief from the humans. No men come around and seek favors from the women nor offer them a crust. Our pace is usually slow. But today it is a forced march.
We collapse at night, only just finding the energy to pass out meager, cold rations that barely take the edge off my hunger. The next day we rise and do it all over again, pressing on as if the devil himself is on our tail.
When we make camp the following night, I realize that there are fewer bondservants—unease skitters under my skin. I don’t want to know what has happened, yet I feel my survival depends upon finding out. My belly is aching from hunger, and I’m a little woozy with exhaustion and from the underlying tension that permeates the camp.
“What happened to them?” I ask Penny. “Did they fall behind? Do they catch up at night?”
She shakes her head. “They do not allow bondservants to fall behind, lest they decide to run away. Human overseers always follow at the back. If any are lagging, they are persuaded to hurry. If they cannot hurry, then they meet their end.”
My eyes well with tears on hearing of this grim fate. I imagine human soldiers, like Trent, taking the thick club he wears at his waist and using it as a tool of destruction upon weak humans whose only failing is not being able to keep up.
“Bondservants live short lives. It’s true that they move us around to suit themselves. I don’t know where we’re going to be next. I’ve been part of Tulwin’s army for more than a year, and he is on the road as much as he is at the capital of Krug. There are moments between when we can rest. Yet there is no place for weak servants among the Blighten. We are resources to be used.” She shrugs. “It is a way of weeding out the weak. If we are not useful anymore, we’re dead.”
I’m not ignorant of the life of a bondservant from my years at the outpost, and yet there are ever more layers to the experience that are being revealed to me. Perhaps I am a little higher in standing, given I’m to be a companion for a fairy child. But the harsh life of the bondservants who labor for Blighten generals is apparent tonight in all its devastation.
I can see now why Penny does what she does, how the crust of bread she barters her favors for might be the difference between her surviving this punishing pace or not. It might even be about connection amid such desolate, desperate times.
We seek only to live another day, to watch the sunrise, to feel the rain upon us, the heat of summer, the bite of winter’s chill, to watch a butterfly dance across a flower, to see the leaves on the trees above us stirred by a breeze, even to experience a moment of shared humor. These are the simple wonders that we can grasp, when we can forget, albeit briefly, we are bondservants who live only because we have some use.
Rain starts to fall. Across the bondservant camp, weary humans rise, murmuring complaints as the fires spit and falter under the gathering deluge. We dash toward the wagons so that we might seek shelter beneath them.
“Attack!”
