HS&S:WT Short
Apr. 19th, 2008 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabremeisterAnother short story, a bit longer than the last one, and completely unrelated.
It was dusk, and the storm which had been threatening to break all day was just beginning to do so. The young woman was the only person heading out of the city - she was the only one on the road out of town, apart from the cluster of sentries at the gate. She hurried up to it, drawing her cloak up tight around her against the gusts of wind, before it was closed for the night.
“Evenin’, Gisele,” greeted the Sergeant. “Back again tomorrow?”
She shook her head tiredly. “Festival’s over, Balen, I’ve been allowed the day off.”
He chuckled. “Wouldn’t we all like that? Not everyone who works for the Burgomeister can prompt his generosity like you can.” She smiled in appreciation. “Go on, get home with you. And be careful!” he called after her.
She half turned and called back, “I will!” just as a gust of wind pulled her cloak open and swirled it around her. She grabbed it and pulled it close again, just as the first raindrops fell. She hurried on up the road, as fast as her weary legs would take her.
Normally, she worked as a seamstress and wardrobe maintainer for the Burgomeister of Venega - it paid enough to keep her alive, but not all that much. Now that her parents had died the money went further, but still not really far enough. And so, for the last two years, she had volunteered her services for the Festival of Kos at the Temple of the Mountain Gods.
The last of the light from the sky and the lights from the town disappeared almost simultaneously as she turned the bend in the road and the trees began to close in around her. Just another half mile to her small cottage. It was a woodsman’s cottage - her father and his father and his father before him (and so on) had made their livings there as lumberjacks, woodcutters, charcoal burners and occasionally guides. She had no brothers, and although pretty, no suitors more serious than the gate Sergeant.
Which was why she was able to work for the Festival without revealing that she was, in fact, doing so. As everyone knew, any woman working the Festival of Kos was no better than a common whore. A woman working the Festival would spend twelve hours a day for two weeks naked, save for a small veil and a few pounds of jewellery, in the Temple, dancing, gyrating, and having prolonged and repeated ritual sex with the priesthood and most prominent congregants. It was demeaning, exhausting (and after the first day, not enjoyable) work, but it paid much more than any whore – or seamstress – earned in the same time. Most of the other women who worked the Festival were the town whores, who used it as a means of increasing their income. As she, and a few others, were not in the habit of selling their bodies, said bodies were in somewhat better condition, and consequently they were paid more. And it was that money, that she had in a purse at the bottom of the small pack she had on her back under her cloak, that would allow her to -
She tripped on a tree root half-buried in the road, and fell flat on her face. She was too tired to get up again.
Half an hour later, the hunter found her. He was padding quietly through the eaves of the forest, on the way home after a particularly long day. He noticed her as a strange bundle on the packed dirt of the road, and left the cover of the trees to investigate. He turned her sprawled form over carefully, and recognised her (with some difficulty) as the pretty young woman who lived in the old hut not far up the path. He’d seen her in the back garden occasionally, helping an older woman, sometimes an older man, with menial work. It had been some time since he’d last seen her in the garden, but he’d spotted her occasionally since, on the road.
He patted her face. “Hey!” Her eyes remained closed. He looked around in exasperation – no-one in sight, expected at this time of day. He sighed and carefully lifted her in his arms – she weighed less than the boar he’d speared earlier and left to hang for a day or two before he came back and stripped it. He knew where the hut was, and besides, the town was not on his way home. There might be some unpleasantness when he knocked on the door, but not nearly half so much as what would transpire if he took her back to the town.
Five minutes later, he was at the door of the hut. It looked a little more run-down than when he’d last seen it. There was no lamplight from under the door, but he supposed that it was sensible for the old and poor to go to bed with the sun. He shifted his grip on Gisele and knocked on the door. After a minute, he knocked again, harder. Still nothing. The rain was really coming down now. The girl had been mumbling in her sleep on the way, and she’d regained enough sensibility to try and put her arms round his neck. They’d slipped away after a few seconds, but the smile still on her face was unmistakable. The hunter sighed – he’d get into trouble for this, he knew it. He put his shoulder to the door and lunged. It burst open, and he went in. There was a small stove, a sturdy table and four wooden chairs in this room. He went through the one doorway into the other room, and saw the two beds, both empty. That explained why no-one answered the knocks, anyway. He carried her to the smaller bed and laid her down carefully. He fumbled with the clasp of her cloak, and pulled it off. He draped it over the back of one of the chairs in the other room, along with the bag that he’d been carrying since it slipped off her shoulder not long after he picked her up. He went back into the bedroom, took the blankets from the other bed, and wrapped her up in them. He took one last look around, resolved to drop off a shank of the boar’s meat in a couple of days, then made to leave.
“Mmm, don’t go.” The voice came from the bed. He turned. She was still mostly asleep, but her hand was stretched out towards him. He shrugged and grabbed a chair and moved it next to the bed. He unslung his spear from his back, laid it down by the bed, and sat. She smiled. “Who are you?”
“I’m a hunter,” he said. “My name’s Megnil.”
“Strange name,” she murmured.
“It’s ... tribal,” he answered, honestly enough. “Your name?”
“Gisele.”
“Nice,” he smiled.
“Thank you - for bringing me home.”
In the near-total darkness of the cottage, the hunter gave a sort of shrug, and a smile.
“How did you know I lived here?” she asked.
“I’ve seen you helping the old ones in the garden before now.”
Her voice was shaky. “My parents. They died two years ago.”
“As did my parents.”
She sat up. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged again. “Don’t be. They died well.”
“Oh. How? If you don’t mind me asking?”
He hesitated. “They killed each other in ritual combat.”
“Ritual combat? What tribe are you from, that has a crazy tradition like that?”
“The Long Fang Tribe,” Megnil replied. “I’m Orc.”
She started and hurled herself back into the far corner of the bed, away from her suddenly dangerous rescuer. “You’re – you’re an Orc? You’re sure?”
It was dark in the room, the only light, overcast evening-light, coming from outside, through two doorways. She couldn’t see his green skin, could barely make out his huge bulk. She remembered the strength of his arms, the feeling of his steady, rolling gait. “F’shach Orcht,” he said, not knowing the words for the sarcastic comment in the language of Yalkat. “You’re safe now,” he said, standing, “I’ll go.”
He stooped for his spear and moved away. He was at the door when Gisele heard herself say, “Wait!”
He stopped in the doorway and half turned. “You want the barbarian to stay? The vicious animal to remain here?”
“You’re – I – don’t go!” she managed.
“Why? You’re home, you’re drying out. You weren’t eaten – by wolves or by me,” he sneered. “Were you molested? No. You fear me. I’ve done my duty. I’ll go.”
“No! Please – I’m sorry. It was … just a shock. I didn’t expect …” she trailed off.
“An Orc to be so caring?” Megnil asked, returning to the chair.
“Well – yes.”
The Orc sat, his spear again by the bed. “So now that I’m staying, why do you want me to?”
Gisele hesitated. “I’m lonely.” She shuffled back nearer to the middle of the bed. “This place – my family’s lived here for generations. And I’m here alone every day, have been for two years. So many memories.” She looked up, brighter – an empty brightness. “And next week, I’m leaving for ever.”
Megnil nodded. “For ever?”
“I’ve finally got enough money to leave here and move to Port Retter or somewhere, and set myself up as a dressmaker.”
“In two years, you worked as, what? A cook, a sewing-woman? And you have enough money to leave here, move to the so-called capital of this land, and buy a shop?”
She heard the doubt in his voice. “I was a seamstress for the Burgomeister,” she confirmed, “but …” hesitated, “you won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“That you were a seamstress for the Burgomeister?” he asked, puzzled.
“No.” She heaved a breath. “The Festival of Kos. You know it?”
He shrugged. “A big party of the last fortnight for one of your minor religions,” he said. “Sometimes you get careless during it, the Tribe has easy pickings.”
“You know what women do at the Festival?”
“All I know is that it’s a party that lasts two weeks.”
She took another deep breath. She looked him in where she guessed his eye to be. “We whore,” she told him. “We dance, and we display ourselves, and we have ritualised sex with the priests and anyone who pays a big enough tithe. That’s how I have the money.”
“Ritual sex? What tribe are you from, that has a crazy tradition like that?”
She shrank back a little. “Yes, that was – a bit, hypocritical, of me, wasn’t it?” She may have blushed, it was hard to tell in the almost pitch blackness.
“Do you have candles?” asked Megnil after a moment. “A lamp?”
“By the stove,” she replied, making to rise.
He waved her back down. “I’ll get it. You’re exhausted.” The Orc rose, made his way into the other room. It wasn’t long before a yellow glow told her he’d found and lit a candle. There was a clonk, as of a door closing, then some metallic clanking, and the smell of burning wood. Megnil returned to the bedroom, bringing the candle and the bag with him. Gisele’s skirt and blouse were slung flattish across the larger bed, but she was still sat up in the smaller one with a blanket wrapped around her. He put the bag down by her bed next to her clogs, and placed the candle in its wooden stick next to it.
“I thought Orcs could see in the dark?” she asked.
“Our hearing is good enough that we can make it appear so,” he answered, “but we need the light just as much as anyone. Besides, you don’t want to be having a conversation like this in a darkened house with a storm howling outside, do you?”
“Not really, no,” she answered. She blushed. “Sorry, I … You’re the first – man, really, to be in here with me, alone.”
“And you half-dressed as well. What will people think?”
“Of a Temple whore entertaining an Orc?” she laughed. Megnil gave a brief throaty chuckle. “They were wet,” she explained, nodding towards her clothes.
“I know, I carried you through the rain for five minutes. I don’t know how long you’d been lying on the road, but it looked like at least three times that.”
“Thank you.”
“I did my duty, just as anyone would have.”
“Duty?”
“Everyone must have the chance to die as they wish. I doubt you wanted to die drowned, frozen, or eaten by wolves?”
“No, I – I don’t. How do you want to die?”
“Like every Orc – in battle.”
“Is … Is that why your parents killed each other?”
“No – they accused each other of … when a man mates with another’s marriage-bound?”
“Adultery?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Had they?”
“They both died. That means they were both guilty of the deeds they were accused of.”
“That sounds a bit …”
“Barbaric?”
“Crude. Trial by combat isn’t really done any more.”
“It wasn’t a crime. It was a matter of honour.”
“I see.” She hesitated. “You know, the same thing happened to me last year. On my first day.”
Megnil was puzzled. “You were accused of adultery?”
“No!” she laughed again. “I was so tired after working my first day at the Festival, I collapsed on the way home.”
“Who picked you up?”
“No one,” she replied. “I woke up when it started raining. Then I saw the hoofprints a few inches from my face where there hadn’t been before, and …”
“Someone went past without helping you?”
“Yes. Someone rich enough to own a horse. Someone for whom helping me wouldn’t have been any trouble.”
Megnil muttered something under his breath, and spat. “Sorry.”
“What did you say?”
“‘And they call us ‘barbaric’.’”
She shrugged. “Maybe … maybe different people have different aspects on barbarism.” She drew her knees up and hugged them.
“You sold yourself so you could leave here and become a merchant in a bigger city?” Megnil shrugged. “It is your choice. I cannot approve, and doubtless there are those of your people who wouldn’t either.”
“Many. What do you do? For a living?”
“I am a hunter,” he replied. “I hunt in the hills and forests near here. I sell the meat to my Tribe’s butchers, sometimes to a human forester. It pays enough. I have accoutrements of war suitable to my standing.”
“You’re a soldier as well?”
“All Orcs are warriors. Fighting is how we live. When the Tribe makes war, I wear my armour, carry my axe and spear, and make good account of myself.”
“Do you get paid for that?”
“The spoils go to the Captain. He splits it with his Sergeants equally, they divide it to their men depending on how well they fought. If the Tribe has a particularly noteworthy battle, we are exempted from the Clan tithe for a month.”
“So, the better you fight, the more money you get?”
“Yes.”
“And who do you fight?”
“Other Tribes. Farmers brave or stupid enough to take our cropland. Careless travellers, brigands, and the like. Dwarfs, when they show themselves.”
“Most of those don’t sound like warriors. Is it honourable to attack those who can’t defend themselves?”
“No. But we must defend what is ours – to do otherwise would be to perish, every creature understands that. The other Tribes, the Dwarfs, the bandits – they fight well, we get good spoils, a lot of honour. The travellers, the farmers – a regrettable duty.”
“Quite a lot of men – Humans, that is – think killing is wrong. That to kill is the last resort of the stupid and violent.”
Megnil sighed. “Humans have soldiers, Orcs have warriors – so what? Humans have whores, Orcs do not. For an Orc to sell their body – unthinkable. It is the lowest depth of depravity, the biggest loss of honour possible, other than betrayal. When an Orc takes a mate, they are bound together for years. Mating before being marriage-bound – it’s not taken lightly. Mating for coin – never.”
“Do you have a mate?”
“I have only 21 summers, there is time,” he shrugged. “You?”
“Twenty-one as well.”
“And you seek to leave this place for somewhere bigger and better – perhaps in the hope of finding your own mate as well?”
“Yes.” The blanket had slipped a little, revealing her shoulders. One of the shoulders of her shift had slipped down too. “I’ve – the gate Sergeant, he’s been nice to me. A few of the Burgomeister’s clerks, they like me. But – there’s been none I …”
“None you would take as mate?”
Gisele noticed the shoulder and replaced it, but left the blanket. “That’s – not quite right. But it’s close enough. You?”
“There are a few females of my Tribe who catch my eye. Good fighters, strong, keen-eyed. I think it’s expected of me to mate with one from another Tribe, though. We need alliances, we are not a big Tribe. I would be – how would you say? a catch.”
“A mighty hunter,” she giggled.
He snorted a laugh. “I am proficient. And I have not been found wanting in battle.”
“Where do you hunt?” She leaned back against the wall. The blanket slipped a little more at the front, revealing more of her shift.
Megnil leaned back in the chair and stretched. It creaked in warning. “My range is maybe five miles each way from here. I work in a triangle with my Tribe’s cave at one point, the waterfall to the north as another, and the rocks at Ghr’onlo as the third.”
“Guh on-low? Where’s that?”
“South a few miles. There’s a clear round pool at the base of a cliff, a stream heading north. To the east and west, jagged rocks, like teeth.”
“I know it,” she smiled. “I – I’ve bathed there, a few times these last few summers.”
“We sometimes bathe there too,” Megnil told her, shifting the chair. “It’s good for collecting fresh water, spearing the odd ibex.” He looked away, and may have been blushing himself now. “And, there are good places to hide and watch the younger females bathing.”
“What!? You’ve spied on me?”
“No! The females of the Tribe! They go in groups to bathe, they like the place. And, being thirteen at the time, it was … how I learned the details of the female form.”
“It … did seem lovely and secluded. Now I wonder who may have been watching. I thought I was alone, each time!”
“You probably were. You’re very skinny compared to Orc females. Probably one in a hundred Orcs would find you arousing. One in twenty,” he hastily amended.
“They would have taken one look and – what? Left in disgust?”
Megnil laughed. “No! If they were as young as I was, they may have stayed anyway. Maybe tried to capture you afterwards to prove they were men to the rest of the Tribe. Most likely ignored you, or left you to your privacy.”
“What would have happened? If they’d captured me?”
“Once they’d taken you back to the cave, and the one responsible had been slapped round the head, you’d have been ransomed back to the town.”
“Not, sold as a slave, or anything?”
“Orcs do not trade slaves. It might deprive you of your right to die as you wish.”
“Oh – so, another set of stories that aren’t true.”
Megnil stretched again. “Very likel-”
The chair collapsed under him. He fell backwards, hitting his head on the wall, the sound of splintering wood mingling in the air with his grunt of pain and surprise, and her cry of concern. She leapt off the bed, the blanket falling away, and knelt over him. “Are you alright?”
He waved her away and sat up. “Yes. Just a bump.” He turned his head so he could rub the back of his head easier. It brought her chest to his eyeline. She didn’t move. He glanced up. “I thought Human women didn’t like showing those?”
It was a quite respectable shift, tied from the upper chest to the neck, but in her tiredness as she dressed at the temple, she hadn’t tied it very tightly, and her sudden movement now had left interesting gaps. She blushed, her hand rising to her throat to hold the shift closed. She moved too fast, overbalanced, tried to correct with her other hand, Megnil tried to steady her, and suddenly she was lying on top of him, the sudden new weight allowing both their heads to hit the stone wall.
“Ow!”
“Nnk!”
Gisele rolled off him and they both climbed to their feet. “I should go,” Megnil said.
“No! No – it’s, it’s late, and the storm’s still blowing, and … I’m still lonely.”
“What about the chair?”
“I don’t need four chairs.”
“It must be replaced. Compen…sensation?”
“Compensation,” she giggled. “If you feel you must – drop me off some meat tomorrow. Please stay.”
He gestured at the shattered chair. “I can’t loom over you as we talk.”
She shrugged. “The bed. It’ll be cosy.”
Megnil looked at her bed in doubt. “We won’t both fit,” he said.
“The other one,” she explained. “My … my parent’s bed,” she finished quietly.
The Orc looked at the larger bed, then back at Gisele. “There is a taboo?” he asked carefully.
She smiled weakly. “Maybe. They’re dead, and I have the right to sleep in it now. But I haven’t. And besides …” she blushed again, “it’s – when you, the first time you have sex, it’s, sort-of-traditionally, it happens on your parent’s bed while they’re out.”
“Can’t get much further out than the afterlife,” Megnil shrugged.
Gisele smiled and sighed. “Get some blankets,” she told him, “and get in.”
The Orc sat on the edge of the bed and hauled his huge furry boots off, then stood and took his large wolfskin, bearskin, huge-furry-thing-skin cloak off. He sat and shuffled into the corner. Gisele sneaked a blanket behind his back then joined him, draping another blanket round both of them, before being enveloped by the Orc’s cloak.
“Warm?” he asked.
“Yes. And I’m in my underwear, in bed with a half-dressed, magnificently muscled, Orc huntsman.”
“My people don’t really wear shirts, except leather or mail.”
“You don’t have one?”
“I have a good coat of mail, and an older one of leather, for war. I do not need them for hunting.”
“Leather armour and chain?”
“My father gave me the leather coat for my first battle – a week after my coming-of-age. I bought the mail one from saved spoils two years later. Maybe in another six months, I’ll have enough for a coat of scale armour.”
“Do Orcs usually wear scale armour? I thought you fought – well, as you are now.”
“Hardly!” he snorted. “We are not as stupid as some think. Though, there are few Orcs good enough or accomplished enough to afford scale armour six years after they come of age. Usually, it takes eight or nine years. Those who can afford it sooner, rather than later, usually become Captains.”
“So, you are good.” He nodded. “What about women? Do Orc women fight? In battles?”
“Of course! Do Human females not?”
“Very few. We’re not as strong as men.”
“That is not your fault. And there are weapons that do not require much strength to be used well.”
“Like what?”
Megnil fidgeted, his hands rummaging under the blankets. He brought out his sling that had been looped round his belt. “This,” he said. “A good aim, and knowing when to release the stone, are far more important to using a sling than strength.”
“Is it effective? Will it kill someone?”
“Not an Orc. Maybe a Human, if you hit them in the right place.”
“But – I heard it was dishonourable for an Orc to kill at a distance?”
“That is one story that’s true. Orcs kill face to face. But for hunting animals, this suffices. And Humans don’t mind how they kill others.”
“I’ve heard stories from the war against Morat,” she confirmed, “we sent a lot of archers to that. And there’s practically a month that doesn’t go by without an attempt to poison one of the town’s burghers.”
“Poison! A coward’s weapon,” Megnil muttered. There was a momentary silence.
“Tell me about the women warriors. Do they fight with you?”
“Side-by-side.”
“They use the same weapons? And have the same armour?”
“They have the weapons and armour suitable to their standing, just like the males.”
“They fight well?”
“They hate letting a male get the first blow,” he grinned. “We have to race them to the fray. Some are very good indeed.”
“Can they get promoted? Become Sergeants and Captains?”
“Sergeants are often females. Both my Captain’s Sergeants are female. He’s marriage-bound to one of them. A female as Captain, though – that is rare.”
“Why?”
“A Captain leads his Tribe. A female cannot do that when they are with child, or raising one. Females spend too much time caring for the young, a Captain must always care for the Tribe.”
“But, other than that – they’re treated equally?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’m beginning to like Orcish life.”
“I have noticed that Human women are not equal sometimes?”
“Closer to most of the time. Nearly always, in fact.”
“I’m beginning to dislike Human life.”
“‘Beginning to’?” she asked with a smile.
“I have long despised it,” he clarified. “You kill your leaders like cowards, you steal everything that is not yours, you commit the worst excesses and depravities and call it ‘necessary’, or worse, ‘fun’.” He turned to look directly at her. The flickering candlelight behind her seemed to turn her hair into a halo. “And some of the most attractive beings in the world are treated as though they are property.”
Gisele looked blank for a moment. Then her eyes widened and she drew back slightly. “Me?” she asked. The Orc nodded. “So – what you said earlier? About one in twenty Orcs ..?”
“I would be the twentieth,” he nodded. Another moment’s silence. “Should I leave?”
She returned to his side, and snuggled up closer to him. “No. That’s the most direct way anyone’s ever told me I’m beautiful,” she replied. “And the sweetest.”
“You don’t mind?”
Under the blankets, she shifted her weight and lay side-on to him. “Why should I? You’re more caring than any man round here, you’re just as bright, and you make the rather handsome Sergeant at the gate look like a twig.” She kissed his cheek. “Okay, you’re an Orc, that’s not so bad when you know a little more than just the stories and rumours, and your face – well, you’re no oil painting, but not many men round here are.”
They spent a few minutes nuzzling each other, as Megnil returned the string of compliments. “You’re thin – fragile compared to Orc females, but that’s no matter. You have intelligence, something we all-too-often lack in quantity. You’re nimble, another prized quality. And you’re the most receptive Human I’ve ever met.” Gisele’s questing hand under the blankets found what it was searching for. Megnil was unable to keep his eyes from flickering downwards.
“You’re not putting it on,” she murmured.
“‘Putting it on’?”
“Faking.”
“Of course not.”
“But you are holding back. Is it because I’m wearing this?” she pulled back and began to unlace her shift.
“Wait!” He grabbed her wrist.
“What?”
“You would shame yourself with me? Like you have been doing for the past fortnight in the Temple of Mountain Gods?”
“No!” She was affronted. Her face softened as his angry face became a puzzled one. “It’s not shameful when we both want it. It’s not shameful to do it out of attraction, and hope, and caring. I don’t want payment for this, except for your own feelings in return.”
“You have either lost your head or your heart. I cannot find the first, and I do not need the second.” But he released her hands.
“Neither,” she answered, untying the shift. “Tonight, by your actions and words, you have convinced me that men – Human men – aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, especially when compared to Orcs. You’ve done much better by me in two hours, than half a dozen men combined did in four years.”
“That maybe so, but I am still an Orc, and you are still a Human.”
The shift came over her head. She turned and dropped it on the floor, and leaned over to blow out the candle. When she rolled back towards him, he was also on his side, facing her. “In the dark,” she whispered, hooking a leg over his as she leaned in, “how can you tell the difference?”
A large hand found her waist and traced its way upwards. “You are thin – fragile,” his low voice replied. “I would hurt you. Orcs are very … enthusiastic, when we mate.”
“Then be careful,” she told him. Her hand found his crotch again. Her eyes widened. “I should stay on top,” she decided.
“And what if someone found out? You would be ridiculed, maybe persecuted.”
“How will they find out? I won’t tell anyone, and who will talk to you that cares about me?”
“No-one. So, you’d be willing to be marriage-bound to me?”
“You said couples mate without becoming bound? Just like Humans. We mate without marriage, and without payment.”
Megnil heaved as he hauled his breeches down. Gisele matched him as she pulled her loincloth off. She rolled on top of him, her breasts pressed against his vast chest, her knees either side of his waist, their lips less than an inch apart.
“What if you become with-child?” the Orc asked.
“The priests bless us at the start of the Festival. As long as the Festival lasts, none of our matings will bear fruit.” They kissed. The woman moved backwards, and shifted her hips. “Besides,” she said, her eyes closed, her voice barely louder than a whisper, “too late to worry about it now.”
The next morning, Megnil awoke first. He was curled around Gisele, one arm cradling her, the other being used as her pillow. It was going numb. He shifted slightly. Gisele woke.
“Mmmhhh. I’m sore all over,” she murmured.
“I was careful,” he replied, “you stayed on top.”
She turned to face him – he took the opportunity to move his arm out of the way. “You were right about being enthusiastic.”
“Orcs do not lie.”
“Neither does this Human, now. You’re really very handsome.”
“How can you tell? It’s still dark in here.”
“You just are,” she replied. She rolled back over and slid out of bed, taking a blanket with her. “I need food,” she said, as she gathered up her clothes. “Will you eat breakfast?”
“If you can spare it,” he replied, heaving himself upright. She disappeared into the main room as he began to dress.
“Oh, I think so,” she called. A pause. “Later today, I’ve got to go and see someone about this cottage. To look after it while I’m in Port Retter.”
He appeared in the doorway, clothed and equipped. “You are determined to go?”
She was dressed, and the door was open, letting in fresh morning light. “I don’t want to someday find myself promoted to food-taster.”
“To face a coward’s death in place of a coward? Who would want to?”
“Well – I don’t want to die of poison, anyway.” She sighed. “But that can wait. I want to bathe in a little secluded pool I know first. It’s a bit early in the year, but I think the cold water will have a beneficial effect on me.” She smiled.
“I have to take my usual route up to Ghr’onlo, see what I can track down, before going back to the Tribe caves tonight.”
“There’ll be no bother - about you not returning last night?”
“A common enough occurrence,” he shrugged. He went over to her, as she busied herself laying out apples and cheese for breakfast. “It’s later than I thought, though. I must leave now if I am to make good time.”
“Oh.”
He kissed her cheek. “We’ll perhaps see each other, before you go to Port Retter.”
“Perhaps.”
On the Origin of Half-Orcs
It was dusk, and the storm which had been threatening to break all day was just beginning to do so. The young woman was the only person heading out of the city - she was the only one on the road out of town, apart from the cluster of sentries at the gate. She hurried up to it, drawing her cloak up tight around her against the gusts of wind, before it was closed for the night.
“Evenin’, Gisele,” greeted the Sergeant. “Back again tomorrow?”
She shook her head tiredly. “Festival’s over, Balen, I’ve been allowed the day off.”
He chuckled. “Wouldn’t we all like that? Not everyone who works for the Burgomeister can prompt his generosity like you can.” She smiled in appreciation. “Go on, get home with you. And be careful!” he called after her.
She half turned and called back, “I will!” just as a gust of wind pulled her cloak open and swirled it around her. She grabbed it and pulled it close again, just as the first raindrops fell. She hurried on up the road, as fast as her weary legs would take her.
Normally, she worked as a seamstress and wardrobe maintainer for the Burgomeister of Venega - it paid enough to keep her alive, but not all that much. Now that her parents had died the money went further, but still not really far enough. And so, for the last two years, she had volunteered her services for the Festival of Kos at the Temple of the Mountain Gods.
The last of the light from the sky and the lights from the town disappeared almost simultaneously as she turned the bend in the road and the trees began to close in around her. Just another half mile to her small cottage. It was a woodsman’s cottage - her father and his father and his father before him (and so on) had made their livings there as lumberjacks, woodcutters, charcoal burners and occasionally guides. She had no brothers, and although pretty, no suitors more serious than the gate Sergeant.
Which was why she was able to work for the Festival without revealing that she was, in fact, doing so. As everyone knew, any woman working the Festival of Kos was no better than a common whore. A woman working the Festival would spend twelve hours a day for two weeks naked, save for a small veil and a few pounds of jewellery, in the Temple, dancing, gyrating, and having prolonged and repeated ritual sex with the priesthood and most prominent congregants. It was demeaning, exhausting (and after the first day, not enjoyable) work, but it paid much more than any whore – or seamstress – earned in the same time. Most of the other women who worked the Festival were the town whores, who used it as a means of increasing their income. As she, and a few others, were not in the habit of selling their bodies, said bodies were in somewhat better condition, and consequently they were paid more. And it was that money, that she had in a purse at the bottom of the small pack she had on her back under her cloak, that would allow her to -
She tripped on a tree root half-buried in the road, and fell flat on her face. She was too tired to get up again.
Half an hour later, the hunter found her. He was padding quietly through the eaves of the forest, on the way home after a particularly long day. He noticed her as a strange bundle on the packed dirt of the road, and left the cover of the trees to investigate. He turned her sprawled form over carefully, and recognised her (with some difficulty) as the pretty young woman who lived in the old hut not far up the path. He’d seen her in the back garden occasionally, helping an older woman, sometimes an older man, with menial work. It had been some time since he’d last seen her in the garden, but he’d spotted her occasionally since, on the road.
He patted her face. “Hey!” Her eyes remained closed. He looked around in exasperation – no-one in sight, expected at this time of day. He sighed and carefully lifted her in his arms – she weighed less than the boar he’d speared earlier and left to hang for a day or two before he came back and stripped it. He knew where the hut was, and besides, the town was not on his way home. There might be some unpleasantness when he knocked on the door, but not nearly half so much as what would transpire if he took her back to the town.
Five minutes later, he was at the door of the hut. It looked a little more run-down than when he’d last seen it. There was no lamplight from under the door, but he supposed that it was sensible for the old and poor to go to bed with the sun. He shifted his grip on Gisele and knocked on the door. After a minute, he knocked again, harder. Still nothing. The rain was really coming down now. The girl had been mumbling in her sleep on the way, and she’d regained enough sensibility to try and put her arms round his neck. They’d slipped away after a few seconds, but the smile still on her face was unmistakable. The hunter sighed – he’d get into trouble for this, he knew it. He put his shoulder to the door and lunged. It burst open, and he went in. There was a small stove, a sturdy table and four wooden chairs in this room. He went through the one doorway into the other room, and saw the two beds, both empty. That explained why no-one answered the knocks, anyway. He carried her to the smaller bed and laid her down carefully. He fumbled with the clasp of her cloak, and pulled it off. He draped it over the back of one of the chairs in the other room, along with the bag that he’d been carrying since it slipped off her shoulder not long after he picked her up. He went back into the bedroom, took the blankets from the other bed, and wrapped her up in them. He took one last look around, resolved to drop off a shank of the boar’s meat in a couple of days, then made to leave.
“Mmm, don’t go.” The voice came from the bed. He turned. She was still mostly asleep, but her hand was stretched out towards him. He shrugged and grabbed a chair and moved it next to the bed. He unslung his spear from his back, laid it down by the bed, and sat. She smiled. “Who are you?”
“I’m a hunter,” he said. “My name’s Megnil.”
“Strange name,” she murmured.
“It’s ... tribal,” he answered, honestly enough. “Your name?”
“Gisele.”
“Nice,” he smiled.
“Thank you - for bringing me home.”
In the near-total darkness of the cottage, the hunter gave a sort of shrug, and a smile.
“How did you know I lived here?” she asked.
“I’ve seen you helping the old ones in the garden before now.”
Her voice was shaky. “My parents. They died two years ago.”
“As did my parents.”
She sat up. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged again. “Don’t be. They died well.”
“Oh. How? If you don’t mind me asking?”
He hesitated. “They killed each other in ritual combat.”
“Ritual combat? What tribe are you from, that has a crazy tradition like that?”
“The Long Fang Tribe,” Megnil replied. “I’m Orc.”
She started and hurled herself back into the far corner of the bed, away from her suddenly dangerous rescuer. “You’re – you’re an Orc? You’re sure?”
It was dark in the room, the only light, overcast evening-light, coming from outside, through two doorways. She couldn’t see his green skin, could barely make out his huge bulk. She remembered the strength of his arms, the feeling of his steady, rolling gait. “F’shach Orcht,” he said, not knowing the words for the sarcastic comment in the language of Yalkat. “You’re safe now,” he said, standing, “I’ll go.”
He stooped for his spear and moved away. He was at the door when Gisele heard herself say, “Wait!”
He stopped in the doorway and half turned. “You want the barbarian to stay? The vicious animal to remain here?”
“You’re – I – don’t go!” she managed.
“Why? You’re home, you’re drying out. You weren’t eaten – by wolves or by me,” he sneered. “Were you molested? No. You fear me. I’ve done my duty. I’ll go.”
“No! Please – I’m sorry. It was … just a shock. I didn’t expect …” she trailed off.
“An Orc to be so caring?” Megnil asked, returning to the chair.
“Well – yes.”
The Orc sat, his spear again by the bed. “So now that I’m staying, why do you want me to?”
Gisele hesitated. “I’m lonely.” She shuffled back nearer to the middle of the bed. “This place – my family’s lived here for generations. And I’m here alone every day, have been for two years. So many memories.” She looked up, brighter – an empty brightness. “And next week, I’m leaving for ever.”
Megnil nodded. “For ever?”
“I’ve finally got enough money to leave here and move to Port Retter or somewhere, and set myself up as a dressmaker.”
“In two years, you worked as, what? A cook, a sewing-woman? And you have enough money to leave here, move to the so-called capital of this land, and buy a shop?”
She heard the doubt in his voice. “I was a seamstress for the Burgomeister,” she confirmed, “but …” hesitated, “you won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“That you were a seamstress for the Burgomeister?” he asked, puzzled.
“No.” She heaved a breath. “The Festival of Kos. You know it?”
He shrugged. “A big party of the last fortnight for one of your minor religions,” he said. “Sometimes you get careless during it, the Tribe has easy pickings.”
“You know what women do at the Festival?”
“All I know is that it’s a party that lasts two weeks.”
She took another deep breath. She looked him in where she guessed his eye to be. “We whore,” she told him. “We dance, and we display ourselves, and we have ritualised sex with the priests and anyone who pays a big enough tithe. That’s how I have the money.”
“Ritual sex? What tribe are you from, that has a crazy tradition like that?”
She shrank back a little. “Yes, that was – a bit, hypocritical, of me, wasn’t it?” She may have blushed, it was hard to tell in the almost pitch blackness.
“Do you have candles?” asked Megnil after a moment. “A lamp?”
“By the stove,” she replied, making to rise.
He waved her back down. “I’ll get it. You’re exhausted.” The Orc rose, made his way into the other room. It wasn’t long before a yellow glow told her he’d found and lit a candle. There was a clonk, as of a door closing, then some metallic clanking, and the smell of burning wood. Megnil returned to the bedroom, bringing the candle and the bag with him. Gisele’s skirt and blouse were slung flattish across the larger bed, but she was still sat up in the smaller one with a blanket wrapped around her. He put the bag down by her bed next to her clogs, and placed the candle in its wooden stick next to it.
“I thought Orcs could see in the dark?” she asked.
“Our hearing is good enough that we can make it appear so,” he answered, “but we need the light just as much as anyone. Besides, you don’t want to be having a conversation like this in a darkened house with a storm howling outside, do you?”
“Not really, no,” she answered. She blushed. “Sorry, I … You’re the first – man, really, to be in here with me, alone.”
“And you half-dressed as well. What will people think?”
“Of a Temple whore entertaining an Orc?” she laughed. Megnil gave a brief throaty chuckle. “They were wet,” she explained, nodding towards her clothes.
“I know, I carried you through the rain for five minutes. I don’t know how long you’d been lying on the road, but it looked like at least three times that.”
“Thank you.”
“I did my duty, just as anyone would have.”
“Duty?”
“Everyone must have the chance to die as they wish. I doubt you wanted to die drowned, frozen, or eaten by wolves?”
“No, I – I don’t. How do you want to die?”
“Like every Orc – in battle.”
“Is … Is that why your parents killed each other?”
“No – they accused each other of … when a man mates with another’s marriage-bound?”
“Adultery?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Had they?”
“They both died. That means they were both guilty of the deeds they were accused of.”
“That sounds a bit …”
“Barbaric?”
“Crude. Trial by combat isn’t really done any more.”
“It wasn’t a crime. It was a matter of honour.”
“I see.” She hesitated. “You know, the same thing happened to me last year. On my first day.”
Megnil was puzzled. “You were accused of adultery?”
“No!” she laughed again. “I was so tired after working my first day at the Festival, I collapsed on the way home.”
“Who picked you up?”
“No one,” she replied. “I woke up when it started raining. Then I saw the hoofprints a few inches from my face where there hadn’t been before, and …”
“Someone went past without helping you?”
“Yes. Someone rich enough to own a horse. Someone for whom helping me wouldn’t have been any trouble.”
Megnil muttered something under his breath, and spat. “Sorry.”
“What did you say?”
“‘And they call us ‘barbaric’.’”
She shrugged. “Maybe … maybe different people have different aspects on barbarism.” She drew her knees up and hugged them.
“You sold yourself so you could leave here and become a merchant in a bigger city?” Megnil shrugged. “It is your choice. I cannot approve, and doubtless there are those of your people who wouldn’t either.”
“Many. What do you do? For a living?”
“I am a hunter,” he replied. “I hunt in the hills and forests near here. I sell the meat to my Tribe’s butchers, sometimes to a human forester. It pays enough. I have accoutrements of war suitable to my standing.”
“You’re a soldier as well?”
“All Orcs are warriors. Fighting is how we live. When the Tribe makes war, I wear my armour, carry my axe and spear, and make good account of myself.”
“Do you get paid for that?”
“The spoils go to the Captain. He splits it with his Sergeants equally, they divide it to their men depending on how well they fought. If the Tribe has a particularly noteworthy battle, we are exempted from the Clan tithe for a month.”
“So, the better you fight, the more money you get?”
“Yes.”
“And who do you fight?”
“Other Tribes. Farmers brave or stupid enough to take our cropland. Careless travellers, brigands, and the like. Dwarfs, when they show themselves.”
“Most of those don’t sound like warriors. Is it honourable to attack those who can’t defend themselves?”
“No. But we must defend what is ours – to do otherwise would be to perish, every creature understands that. The other Tribes, the Dwarfs, the bandits – they fight well, we get good spoils, a lot of honour. The travellers, the farmers – a regrettable duty.”
“Quite a lot of men – Humans, that is – think killing is wrong. That to kill is the last resort of the stupid and violent.”
Megnil sighed. “Humans have soldiers, Orcs have warriors – so what? Humans have whores, Orcs do not. For an Orc to sell their body – unthinkable. It is the lowest depth of depravity, the biggest loss of honour possible, other than betrayal. When an Orc takes a mate, they are bound together for years. Mating before being marriage-bound – it’s not taken lightly. Mating for coin – never.”
“Do you have a mate?”
“I have only 21 summers, there is time,” he shrugged. “You?”
“Twenty-one as well.”
“And you seek to leave this place for somewhere bigger and better – perhaps in the hope of finding your own mate as well?”
“Yes.” The blanket had slipped a little, revealing her shoulders. One of the shoulders of her shift had slipped down too. “I’ve – the gate Sergeant, he’s been nice to me. A few of the Burgomeister’s clerks, they like me. But – there’s been none I …”
“None you would take as mate?”
Gisele noticed the shoulder and replaced it, but left the blanket. “That’s – not quite right. But it’s close enough. You?”
“There are a few females of my Tribe who catch my eye. Good fighters, strong, keen-eyed. I think it’s expected of me to mate with one from another Tribe, though. We need alliances, we are not a big Tribe. I would be – how would you say? a catch.”
“A mighty hunter,” she giggled.
He snorted a laugh. “I am proficient. And I have not been found wanting in battle.”
“Where do you hunt?” She leaned back against the wall. The blanket slipped a little more at the front, revealing more of her shift.
Megnil leaned back in the chair and stretched. It creaked in warning. “My range is maybe five miles each way from here. I work in a triangle with my Tribe’s cave at one point, the waterfall to the north as another, and the rocks at Ghr’onlo as the third.”
“Guh on-low? Where’s that?”
“South a few miles. There’s a clear round pool at the base of a cliff, a stream heading north. To the east and west, jagged rocks, like teeth.”
“I know it,” she smiled. “I – I’ve bathed there, a few times these last few summers.”
“We sometimes bathe there too,” Megnil told her, shifting the chair. “It’s good for collecting fresh water, spearing the odd ibex.” He looked away, and may have been blushing himself now. “And, there are good places to hide and watch the younger females bathing.”
“What!? You’ve spied on me?”
“No! The females of the Tribe! They go in groups to bathe, they like the place. And, being thirteen at the time, it was … how I learned the details of the female form.”
“It … did seem lovely and secluded. Now I wonder who may have been watching. I thought I was alone, each time!”
“You probably were. You’re very skinny compared to Orc females. Probably one in a hundred Orcs would find you arousing. One in twenty,” he hastily amended.
“They would have taken one look and – what? Left in disgust?”
Megnil laughed. “No! If they were as young as I was, they may have stayed anyway. Maybe tried to capture you afterwards to prove they were men to the rest of the Tribe. Most likely ignored you, or left you to your privacy.”
“What would have happened? If they’d captured me?”
“Once they’d taken you back to the cave, and the one responsible had been slapped round the head, you’d have been ransomed back to the town.”
“Not, sold as a slave, or anything?”
“Orcs do not trade slaves. It might deprive you of your right to die as you wish.”
“Oh – so, another set of stories that aren’t true.”
Megnil stretched again. “Very likel-”
The chair collapsed under him. He fell backwards, hitting his head on the wall, the sound of splintering wood mingling in the air with his grunt of pain and surprise, and her cry of concern. She leapt off the bed, the blanket falling away, and knelt over him. “Are you alright?”
He waved her away and sat up. “Yes. Just a bump.” He turned his head so he could rub the back of his head easier. It brought her chest to his eyeline. She didn’t move. He glanced up. “I thought Human women didn’t like showing those?”
It was a quite respectable shift, tied from the upper chest to the neck, but in her tiredness as she dressed at the temple, she hadn’t tied it very tightly, and her sudden movement now had left interesting gaps. She blushed, her hand rising to her throat to hold the shift closed. She moved too fast, overbalanced, tried to correct with her other hand, Megnil tried to steady her, and suddenly she was lying on top of him, the sudden new weight allowing both their heads to hit the stone wall.
“Ow!”
“Nnk!”
Gisele rolled off him and they both climbed to their feet. “I should go,” Megnil said.
“No! No – it’s, it’s late, and the storm’s still blowing, and … I’m still lonely.”
“What about the chair?”
“I don’t need four chairs.”
“It must be replaced. Compen…sensation?”
“Compensation,” she giggled. “If you feel you must – drop me off some meat tomorrow. Please stay.”
He gestured at the shattered chair. “I can’t loom over you as we talk.”
She shrugged. “The bed. It’ll be cosy.”
Megnil looked at her bed in doubt. “We won’t both fit,” he said.
“The other one,” she explained. “My … my parent’s bed,” she finished quietly.
The Orc looked at the larger bed, then back at Gisele. “There is a taboo?” he asked carefully.
She smiled weakly. “Maybe. They’re dead, and I have the right to sleep in it now. But I haven’t. And besides …” she blushed again, “it’s – when you, the first time you have sex, it’s, sort-of-traditionally, it happens on your parent’s bed while they’re out.”
“Can’t get much further out than the afterlife,” Megnil shrugged.
Gisele smiled and sighed. “Get some blankets,” she told him, “and get in.”
The Orc sat on the edge of the bed and hauled his huge furry boots off, then stood and took his large wolfskin, bearskin, huge-furry-thing-skin cloak off. He sat and shuffled into the corner. Gisele sneaked a blanket behind his back then joined him, draping another blanket round both of them, before being enveloped by the Orc’s cloak.
“Warm?” he asked.
“Yes. And I’m in my underwear, in bed with a half-dressed, magnificently muscled, Orc huntsman.”
“My people don’t really wear shirts, except leather or mail.”
“You don’t have one?”
“I have a good coat of mail, and an older one of leather, for war. I do not need them for hunting.”
“Leather armour and chain?”
“My father gave me the leather coat for my first battle – a week after my coming-of-age. I bought the mail one from saved spoils two years later. Maybe in another six months, I’ll have enough for a coat of scale armour.”
“Do Orcs usually wear scale armour? I thought you fought – well, as you are now.”
“Hardly!” he snorted. “We are not as stupid as some think. Though, there are few Orcs good enough or accomplished enough to afford scale armour six years after they come of age. Usually, it takes eight or nine years. Those who can afford it sooner, rather than later, usually become Captains.”
“So, you are good.” He nodded. “What about women? Do Orc women fight? In battles?”
“Of course! Do Human females not?”
“Very few. We’re not as strong as men.”
“That is not your fault. And there are weapons that do not require much strength to be used well.”
“Like what?”
Megnil fidgeted, his hands rummaging under the blankets. He brought out his sling that had been looped round his belt. “This,” he said. “A good aim, and knowing when to release the stone, are far more important to using a sling than strength.”
“Is it effective? Will it kill someone?”
“Not an Orc. Maybe a Human, if you hit them in the right place.”
“But – I heard it was dishonourable for an Orc to kill at a distance?”
“That is one story that’s true. Orcs kill face to face. But for hunting animals, this suffices. And Humans don’t mind how they kill others.”
“I’ve heard stories from the war against Morat,” she confirmed, “we sent a lot of archers to that. And there’s practically a month that doesn’t go by without an attempt to poison one of the town’s burghers.”
“Poison! A coward’s weapon,” Megnil muttered. There was a momentary silence.
“Tell me about the women warriors. Do they fight with you?”
“Side-by-side.”
“They use the same weapons? And have the same armour?”
“They have the weapons and armour suitable to their standing, just like the males.”
“They fight well?”
“They hate letting a male get the first blow,” he grinned. “We have to race them to the fray. Some are very good indeed.”
“Can they get promoted? Become Sergeants and Captains?”
“Sergeants are often females. Both my Captain’s Sergeants are female. He’s marriage-bound to one of them. A female as Captain, though – that is rare.”
“Why?”
“A Captain leads his Tribe. A female cannot do that when they are with child, or raising one. Females spend too much time caring for the young, a Captain must always care for the Tribe.”
“But, other than that – they’re treated equally?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’m beginning to like Orcish life.”
“I have noticed that Human women are not equal sometimes?”
“Closer to most of the time. Nearly always, in fact.”
“I’m beginning to dislike Human life.”
“‘Beginning to’?” she asked with a smile.
“I have long despised it,” he clarified. “You kill your leaders like cowards, you steal everything that is not yours, you commit the worst excesses and depravities and call it ‘necessary’, or worse, ‘fun’.” He turned to look directly at her. The flickering candlelight behind her seemed to turn her hair into a halo. “And some of the most attractive beings in the world are treated as though they are property.”
Gisele looked blank for a moment. Then her eyes widened and she drew back slightly. “Me?” she asked. The Orc nodded. “So – what you said earlier? About one in twenty Orcs ..?”
“I would be the twentieth,” he nodded. Another moment’s silence. “Should I leave?”
She returned to his side, and snuggled up closer to him. “No. That’s the most direct way anyone’s ever told me I’m beautiful,” she replied. “And the sweetest.”
“You don’t mind?”
Under the blankets, she shifted her weight and lay side-on to him. “Why should I? You’re more caring than any man round here, you’re just as bright, and you make the rather handsome Sergeant at the gate look like a twig.” She kissed his cheek. “Okay, you’re an Orc, that’s not so bad when you know a little more than just the stories and rumours, and your face – well, you’re no oil painting, but not many men round here are.”
They spent a few minutes nuzzling each other, as Megnil returned the string of compliments. “You’re thin – fragile compared to Orc females, but that’s no matter. You have intelligence, something we all-too-often lack in quantity. You’re nimble, another prized quality. And you’re the most receptive Human I’ve ever met.” Gisele’s questing hand under the blankets found what it was searching for. Megnil was unable to keep his eyes from flickering downwards.
“You’re not putting it on,” she murmured.
“‘Putting it on’?”
“Faking.”
“Of course not.”
“But you are holding back. Is it because I’m wearing this?” she pulled back and began to unlace her shift.
“Wait!” He grabbed her wrist.
“What?”
“You would shame yourself with me? Like you have been doing for the past fortnight in the Temple of Mountain Gods?”
“No!” She was affronted. Her face softened as his angry face became a puzzled one. “It’s not shameful when we both want it. It’s not shameful to do it out of attraction, and hope, and caring. I don’t want payment for this, except for your own feelings in return.”
“You have either lost your head or your heart. I cannot find the first, and I do not need the second.” But he released her hands.
“Neither,” she answered, untying the shift. “Tonight, by your actions and words, you have convinced me that men – Human men – aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, especially when compared to Orcs. You’ve done much better by me in two hours, than half a dozen men combined did in four years.”
“That maybe so, but I am still an Orc, and you are still a Human.”
The shift came over her head. She turned and dropped it on the floor, and leaned over to blow out the candle. When she rolled back towards him, he was also on his side, facing her. “In the dark,” she whispered, hooking a leg over his as she leaned in, “how can you tell the difference?”
A large hand found her waist and traced its way upwards. “You are thin – fragile,” his low voice replied. “I would hurt you. Orcs are very … enthusiastic, when we mate.”
“Then be careful,” she told him. Her hand found his crotch again. Her eyes widened. “I should stay on top,” she decided.
“And what if someone found out? You would be ridiculed, maybe persecuted.”
“How will they find out? I won’t tell anyone, and who will talk to you that cares about me?”
“No-one. So, you’d be willing to be marriage-bound to me?”
“You said couples mate without becoming bound? Just like Humans. We mate without marriage, and without payment.”
Megnil heaved as he hauled his breeches down. Gisele matched him as she pulled her loincloth off. She rolled on top of him, her breasts pressed against his vast chest, her knees either side of his waist, their lips less than an inch apart.
“What if you become with-child?” the Orc asked.
“The priests bless us at the start of the Festival. As long as the Festival lasts, none of our matings will bear fruit.” They kissed. The woman moved backwards, and shifted her hips. “Besides,” she said, her eyes closed, her voice barely louder than a whisper, “too late to worry about it now.”
The next morning, Megnil awoke first. He was curled around Gisele, one arm cradling her, the other being used as her pillow. It was going numb. He shifted slightly. Gisele woke.
“Mmmhhh. I’m sore all over,” she murmured.
“I was careful,” he replied, “you stayed on top.”
She turned to face him – he took the opportunity to move his arm out of the way. “You were right about being enthusiastic.”
“Orcs do not lie.”
“Neither does this Human, now. You’re really very handsome.”
“How can you tell? It’s still dark in here.”
“You just are,” she replied. She rolled back over and slid out of bed, taking a blanket with her. “I need food,” she said, as she gathered up her clothes. “Will you eat breakfast?”
“If you can spare it,” he replied, heaving himself upright. She disappeared into the main room as he began to dress.
“Oh, I think so,” she called. A pause. “Later today, I’ve got to go and see someone about this cottage. To look after it while I’m in Port Retter.”
He appeared in the doorway, clothed and equipped. “You are determined to go?”
She was dressed, and the door was open, letting in fresh morning light. “I don’t want to someday find myself promoted to food-taster.”
“To face a coward’s death in place of a coward? Who would want to?”
“Well – I don’t want to die of poison, anyway.” She sighed. “But that can wait. I want to bathe in a little secluded pool I know first. It’s a bit early in the year, but I think the cold water will have a beneficial effect on me.” She smiled.
“I have to take my usual route up to Ghr’onlo, see what I can track down, before going back to the Tribe caves tonight.”
“There’ll be no bother - about you not returning last night?”
“A common enough occurrence,” he shrugged. He went over to her, as she busied herself laying out apples and cheese for breakfast. “It’s later than I thought, though. I must leave now if I am to make good time.”
“Oh.”
He kissed her cheek. “We’ll perhaps see each other, before you go to Port Retter.”
“Perhaps.”
no subject
Date: 2008-04-20 02:03 pm (UTC)Nice to know someone likes this stuff, anyway.