AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Esme
As promised, they put me to work.
First, I set up the tiller like Drazak always did. When his face appears in my mind, I think of the way his tusks brushed his cheeks when I earned a rare smile, and my fury and misery whirl up together into a tornado. Then I’m tasked with tilling the field. I work all day, sweating despite the cool fall air. I think of Han’zir, following along behind the tiller, gently planting each seed and whispering something to it as he covers it with dirt. By the time evening comes around, my body is ready to give out underneath me, and when dinner is served, I get the smallest portion of rations.
“The Colonel takes everything else,” the overseer says with a begrudging grunt. “You get the scraps, girl.”
I accept what I can and wolf it down without thinking of saving any for later. There’s always someone watching me in the daylight, and at night I’m tied up once more and left in the barn to rot. It’s hard not to think of the big bed in the low clay house with the pulled leather roof, how it felt to sleep there curled up against my orc’s big shoulder, with my troll’s arm slung over my waist. It’s painful in so many ways, thinking of what I lost, how they both used me.
Every night, the dog lies down next to me, like she knows I’m all alone.
This will be every day from now until the rest of time, I realize. Shackled to a post, sleeping in the dirt next to the dog I’ve nicknamed Keva, thinking of home. The two holes inside me ache and fester, and I wonder what happened on the farm, how I was tied so closely to Han’zir and Drazak that being without them makes me famished deep in my heart.
I’ve been there for who knows how many days, working myself to the bone from sunrise to sunset and eating bits of leftover ham and rotting greens, when there’s a commotion by the big house. Something is happening.
The overseer and I both run to find out what the ruckus is about. It’s the colonel again, this time flanked by soldiers with horses and carts. It all looks very familiar.
“She’s here,” the overseer hisses. He heads towards the colonel and dips his head in respect. I stay put. I would never try to escape surrounded by soldiers, not unless I wanted to actually be hanged this time.
“What brings you visiting today?” asks the overseer. The colonel dismounts her horse.
“Supplies. Rations.” She gestures over her shoulder, and the soldiers bring the wagons into the field. They head for the grain silo first to take what they want. The overseer’s hands clench into fists as he silently watches them head to the storage shed, retrieving crate after crate of produce. They load up the wagons while the colonel surveys the farm, checking inside the house for anything else the workers might have squirreled away.
I feel empty as I watch it happen again. How many will go hungry so we can continue to invade trollkin land? Once again, I face a winter of starvation so the bloodshed can go on. I’m no better off here than I was with Drazak and Han’zir. At least there I had my orc and my troll. At least there I slept in a soft bed.
I can’t think like that. That life is gone for me now. The last of my hope drains out of me as the wagons are filled, and the soldiers haul them away, all of our supplies going with them.
“Colonel,” the overseer says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “If you take everything, we’ll have nothing to eat. And we can’t work the land without something to eat.”
She shrugs, disaffected. “We all have to make sacrifices for the cause.”
I grind my teeth. There are monsters on both sides of this war.
The overseer grumbles and gestures at one of the women working to clean up after the soldiers. “Take her to the barn,” he snaps, and points at me. Then he turns back to the soldiers who are pulling harvests off the plants, as if disbelieving what’s in front of him.
“This is how it always goes,” I tell him as the woman wraps a rope around my wrists. “On both sides.”
He turns around and slaps me across the face, and it echoes in my ears. Then I’m dragged away.
Drazak
The sensation of home is getting stronger. The longer we walk through the night, the more I feel like we’re somewhere familiar. It’s the way I felt the first time I looked into Esme’s eyes, when I recognized her from some other lifetime.
Perhaps this is it, my connection with her, the way Han’zir has his. The sensation of rightness, like every step is taking me closer to the place where I’m supposed to be.
As the sun starts to rise, we find an abandoned outbuilding to hide in during the day. We’ll try to get some shut-eye, and then keep going once the sun sets again.
I’ve already lost track of the days. It all feels endless without our third star.
Han’zir takes off his cloak and spreads it out under us, then wraps his big body around mine. His hand finds its way down from my chest to my groin, easily unlacing the front of my trousers, where my cock is waiting for him. In the darkness, he strokes me slowly, waiting with a quiet patience as it thickens in his palm. He plays with me just the way I like while he kisses my throat, then nibbles on my ear. When I finally go off in his hand, it’s not powerful, but it’s soothing in a way that I needed.
My troll, who knows me inside and out.
We fall asleep that way, his arms curled around me, our backs and shoulders sore from the hard ground.
We’re awoken by the sound of barks. I’m on my feet instantly, hatchet in hand. Have they finally found us?
Han’zir’s right behind me as I open the rickety door. On the other side is a rather large dog, mostly black with spots of brown and white. It’s barking wildly at us, but it doesn’t seem angry, wagging its tail. When we emerge from the building and look around, there don’t seem to be any humans in sight.
