Chapter 9

Becca

T aking a bath in a wagon was always a challenge. Taking it on a chilly autumn morning was a border-line torture. But it’d been six days since I had a proper bath last. And that was to wash off the vast amount of green orc seed that a certain orc had spilled all over my thighs.

That night, I’d waited for a little while, giving Agor some time to get away from the settlement. Then I raised an alarm, claiming that the orc had torn through his restraints, fought his way outside of the community hall, and escaped. My tunic was long enough to cover the rips in my pants. But my torn neckline and the frayed, broken ropes had been enough to confirm my story.

People believed me because I’d never sided with an enemy before. No one would ever imagine I’d release the orc after letting him fuck my brains out under the guise of guarding him.

Telling the lie left a foul aftertaste in my mouth, but if I had to do it again, I would. I couldn’t just stand back and watch them kill him.

Heaving a bucket of ice-cold water on top of my wood-burning stove to warm it up, I sighed, wondering if using a soapy washcloth on my naked body would remind me about Agor’s tongue sliding over my skin.

Literally everything reminded me of him. Everywhere I looked—the forest, the main square of the settlement, the community hall that Agor and I had desecrated so thoroughly that night—everything made my thoughts drift to him. Keeping my eyes closed proved even worse, as my mind conjured new scenes and images of us together that often led to my touching myself, which sadly left me feeling even more bereft and lonely afterwards.

“It’s just sex,” I muttered under my breath, stoking the stove with more wood. “It just must be that time of the month or something—the horniest time.”

Waiting for the water to boil, I was just about to have a breakfast of cattail hearts and mashed cranberries in lieu of a dressing when a blood-curdling scream tore through the chilly morning.

A woman screamed just outside of my door as if she was being murdered.

I grabbed my sword from the scabbard hanging over the kitchen chair, flipped the lock latch off, then swung the door open, ready to stab, chop, and maim her attacker.

Faeena stood on the stairs leading up to my porch that was barely big enough for a doormat. A metal mug was rolling down the path from my wagon, spilling its contents in a steaming trail on the cold ground. Faeena’s usually serene gray-blue eyes were opened impossibly wide.

“Oh, dear gods our creators, Becca, what is this?” Nervously tugging at the end of her thick, black braid, she pointed with her other shaking hand at the bloody carcass of a wild boar left by my door.

The beast was huge, with its body hanging off my porch on both ends. Its throat had been slit, and it must’ve been slit pretty recently, as the blood was still dripping from it and under my porch.

People rushed to my wagon from all over the settlement, alerted by Faeena’s terrified scream.

“I was just bringing you some cranberry tea...” she tried to explain in a trembling voice.

After Agor’s escape, Faeena hadn’t asked me many questions, probably sensing it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. I couldn’t tell her the truth and expose myself as the one who let the orc escape. Neither did I wish to keep lying to Faeena, of all people. So, I didn’t talk at all. What she assumed, I didn’t know, but she’d been fussing a lot about me, bringing me food, volunteering to brush my hair, and even offering to do my laundry, which I adamantly refused, of course. With two small children and a husband, Faeena already had enough heads to brush and laundry to do to last her a lifetime.

“What happened?” Gleb rushed to his wife.

She whimpered, shaking both hands at the boar, then hid her face on her husband’s chest.

“I didn’t put it here,” I explained to Gleb and about two dozen other people who had gathered in front of my wagon by now. Two of the three elders had joined them, too, Artyom and Kazimir.

“Who did it then?” Elder Artyom asked.

I shrugged. “No idea.”

Simon was here too already. With his hands on his knees, he peered at the dead animal from its ramp side.

“Well, someone must’ve put it here,” he determined. “It’s not like the boar came here all the way from the forest on its own, then—”

“Then slit its own throat on my doorsteps?” I finished for him, barely resisting an eye-roll. “You’re absolutely right, Simon. That would be highly unlikely.”

Elder Kazimir poked the boar with his walking stick, as if to make sure the creature was indeed dead.

“The orcs did it,” he stated grimly. “This is a warning sign to us. A threat.”

Martha gasped in horror. She came here along with her husband, Stephen, a tall, bearded man who had his arm in a sling after Agor broke it.

Pointing at the gaping wound in the boar’s throat, Martha shrieked, “They’re telling us they’ll slit all our throats too!”

“We need to burn it,” Elder Kazimir decided. “We’ll need to gather the highest wood pyre we can for the fire to be as big as our defiance.”

Quite a few in the growing crowd welcomed that plan.

“We’re not afraid of them!” they shouted.

“We’ve been through worse and survived.”

“We’ve traveled a long way to come here. They’re not pushing us back.”

Several men volunteered to run off into the forest to gather wood right now.

“Or maybe,” I raised my voice over all that noise. “Instead of wasting both the meat and the firewood, we’ll clean the kill, cook it, and feed the children a proper meal for once?”

Faeena lifted her head from Gleb’s chest, looking intrigued. “We can cook its heart, kidneys, and liver, then chop them up, mix with wild onions, and stuff the boar’s stomach like our mothers used to do back in the foothills, remember? It tasted amazing when baked in the oven. I always wished that my girls could try it.” She swept the crowd with a gaze filled with hope.

“Boiling the bones would make a great stock,” a woman chimed in from the crowd. “When was the last time our hunters brought back anything bigger than a weasel?”

I didn’t see who that was exactly, but another woman matched her enthusiasm with her own suggestion.

“And the boar’s hide we could—”

Kazimir didn’t let her finish, raising his stick in a call to attention.

“Once again, you’re letting your stomachs make an important decision, when you should use your brains to think,” he chastised. “The orcs have sent us a message. They left it at Becca’s door because she’s the one who killed some of them already.”

Elder Artyom tapped his chin in thought before speaking. “Even if you’re right, the message has been sent. We received it. We can deliberate about how to strengthen our defenses to protect us from the possible orc attack. Meanwhile, we can cook and eat this boar. Burning it on a pyre won’t make us any stronger, but eating it would.”

I stepped back, letting the elders argue. I’d voiced my idea and let it take root. From my experience, arguing any more wouldn’t help me drive my point in. Eventually, the men would just call me “a difficult woman” and start ignoring everything I said on this matter from that point on.

Thankfully, Elder Artyom seemed to share my point of view this time. He was one of the three village elders, and he was a man, which helped.

“What’s this?” Faeena leaned closer to the boar’s head.

Only now, I noticed a sparkling green bow tied around one of the animal’s long tusks. I bent over to snatch it quickly before anyone else saw it.

Faeena found my eyes with hers.

“Am I mistaken?” she whispered. “Or does it look more like a courting present than a declaration of war?”

My face flamed hot with blush.

A courting present?

That couldn’t be true.

“You are mistaken,” I hissed under my breath, stuffing the bow into my pocket.

After common sense finally prevailed and Artyom, along with three other men, hauled the boar off to be butchered, I returned to my wagon and closed the door behind me.

Only then did I venture to take another look at the bow I’d picked from the boar’s tusk.

The emerald green ribbon was trimmed with fresh-water pearls and stitched with gold thread. If it indeed was a present, it was the most expensive and definitely the prettiest present I’d ever received.

People didn’t gift me pretty things. Whatever presents I’d ever received had been practical, useful things like food, weapons, or tools. This ribbon had no purpose other than to sparkle in my hair.

I laid it against my braid on my shoulder, admiring the glimmer of pearls and gold against the shimmering green silk. It smelled like mint, and I pressed it to my nose, inhaling the scent that brought back memories of the spacious house with the teapot under a colorful cozy, a plate of delicious meat pies, and the orcs’ High Chief wrapped in chains like the most wonderful present himself.

TWO DAYS LATER, TWO huge bags sat on my porch. I almost fell over them when leaving my wagon for my morning exercise.

“Shit.” I grabbed the door frame for balance.

Were they another present?

Or could this possibly be a trap?

Carefully, I crouched next to the bags, then pulled at the tie to open one. A puff of white powder rose from the opening, stirring some almost forgotten memories.

“Flour,” I exhaled in awe.

For the first time in years, there’d be the scent of baked bread in the settlement again. And I believed I knew exactly whom to thank for it.

But why would Agor take it upon himself to feed the settlement like that?

I didn’t recall complaining to him about our struggles. I certainly never asked him for help. Though, I did mention once that I had no food to spare.

Whatever I said or didn’t say, however, it wouldn’t take much to figure out that without our fields and gardens, with no cattle, and with all the hunting grounds controlled by orcs, the humans didn’t exactly roll around in an overabundance of meat and flour.

Agor didn’t need to be particularly perceptive to realize that we were starving.

The question was, why did he care?

PRESENTS CONTINUED to arrive about every other day. Over the following week, we received more venison, jars of wild honey, and even two live goats for milk. I figured with a few hours of travel between the orcs’ keep and our settlement, Agor would need at least a day to rest and to source another present between his deliveries.

Some people still treated the gifts with suspicion. Kazimir claimed that the food must be poisoned and the goats were cursed. When Faeena, Martha, and other women baked cranberry scones with honey, the mouth-watering scent drifted from wagon to wagon, having all of us drooling nearby while we waited for the scones to get ready.

Kazimir was one of the very few who refused to eat any. Sulking from the shadows, he threatened with doom and painful death to all of us who ate the delicious scones that day.

One morning, when another present was supposed to arrive, I woke up early on purpose. The presents seemed to be intended for me, even if I ended up giving most of them away, and I wondered if Faeena was right and these were indeed courting presents.

Why else would Agor care about feeding people who had brutally attacked and almost killed him? And other than Agor, there was no one else in the wetlands who’d give us food, either poisoned or not. No one cared whether we lived or died.

I glanced at the precious silk ribbon hanging over the mirror in my washing area in the corner. I loved looking at it but hadn’t dared wear it yet, afraid there’d be questions I couldn’t answer.

What if the orcs’ High Chief was really courting me?

Where would it all lead?

This was an entirely new area for me. I’d had my share of men, but other than Gleb, none of them had officially courted me. And even Gleb never left bloodied boars at my door.

What was Agor’s plan?

Courting usually led to dating. The dating then often ended in a wedding and a marriage.

Was that what he had in mind? Since he couldn’t have me as a sex slave, did he decide to have me as his wife instead?

I wasn’t sure if a marriage could even happen, considering that orcs and humans didn’t get along. But even if it was possible, my feelings on that weren’t clear at all.

On the one hand, the prospect of spending every night with him filled me with giddy effervescence. I loved everything about that idea from getting to bed together, to making love to each other until the two of us could no longer move a limb from exhaustion, to me falling asleep wrapped in his big, strong arms.

Spending nights with him would be wonderful.

But what about the days?

Agor was straightforward and persistent in his desire to claim me. But what did he expect from me if that happened?

If he wanted a housewife, I feared he’d be disappointed.

My mother used to train with weapons when she was younger. She trained with my father, until they fell in love, got married, and had me. After that, her days revolved exclusively around taking care of us, cleaning, cooking, and little else.

My mother seemed to be content with trading her swords for cooking pots and gardening tools. I feared that would make me miserable and frustrated.

The life of a housewife never appealed to me. I feared I wouldn’t be good at it even if I tried. I could trap, skin, and roast a rabbit from the valley to survive. But I couldn’t bake it into a finger-licking dish with herbs and spices like Faeena did. The only way I could properly handle a sewing needle would be if it was the size of a sword. I kept my wagon clean and tidy only because I liked order and detested dirt. But cleaning always made me feel like I was wasting my time when I could be doing anything else instead.

When I thought about it in detail like that, a marriage didn’t seem much different from what Agor wished to do to me before. Instead of being literally chained to his bed, I’d be figuratively chained to the kitchen and a washing basin, possibly just cleaning his weapons without a chance of ever using a sword again.

I knew I was getting way ahead of myself. But courting usually signified the start of a couple’s future. And I feared that a marriage, either to a human or an orc, wasn’t a suitable future for me.

I far preferred my position as the village guard, but that wasn’t a usual occupation for a woman in my settlement. Our men determined long ago that I wouldn’t make a suitable wife, which was fine by me. Now, I felt I should make that clear to Agor before he wasted any more time and effort on his courting presents.

It pained me to reject him. I liked him way too much already, dreaming about him day and night. But maybe the best thing was to stop it early, before any promises could be exchanged between us and hearts could be broken.

All these thoughts made me anxious. I had to explain it all to Agor, but just thinking about seeing him again sent a thrill of warm tingles through my chest.

Laying in my bed, I listened to every noise outside my door. Carefully, I slipped out from under the covers, trying not to make a sound, then tiptoed to the door and listened.

My heart thudded faster at the thought that the orc I longed to see might be right there, on the other side of this door, delivering another present for me.

A scurrying noise or something that sounded like scratching came from behind the door, and I swung it open. Sadly, no orc was there. Just two big baskets woven from the long cattail leaves sat on my porch.

My neighbors poked their heads out of their wagons already, clearly curious about more presents.

“What is it today, Becca?” Martha asked, jousting away her husband in the doorframe of their wagon.

Faeena hurried down the steps from her wagon too. “Do you need help?”

“I’m not sure yet.” I rubbed my arms through the thin sleeves of my nightshirt. I should’ve grabbed a shawl before rushing out into the chilly morning like that, but my curiosity was too strong to return for the shawl now.

I crouched by the baskets. The smell of smoked meat drifting from them made my mouth water so much, I risked drowning in my own saliva.

“Oh gods, is it really...?” I opened the lid of the first basket. It was filled with thick curls of smoked sausage, massive chunks of ham, and whole wheels of cheese. I tore a piece of sausage right away and stuffed it in my mouth. “Mmm, this is fucking divine,” I moaned around the mouthful.

“Ohhh.” Faeena sank into a crouch next to me. “Can I just smell it, please? I can’t remember the last time I smelled smoked meat. We ate the last piece we had still back in the valley.”

“Here, have some.” I took a long link of sausage and gave it to her, then another one to Gleb and one to Simon, who appeared suddenly as if out of nowhere, one to Martha, and one to Ilya and whoever else happened to be here.

Kazimir rushed to us down the front path, his long gray hair flowing in the cold morning breeze, his walking stick hitting the packed dirt with force.

“Stop it, you fools!” he yelled. “You’re heading straight to your untimely demise and damnation.”

“Oh well.” I shrugged. “As long as I can grab some of this sausage for the road.” I shoved a coil of sausage and the smallest wheel of cheese under my arm, then moved the basket toward Gleb. “Take it to the community hall and divide the rest between everyone fairly.”

“But what’s in the other basket?” Martha eyed the second one, a little smaller than the first.

I clicked the lock on it open, also curious to find out what it held.

From the first sight, the basket appeared empty. The same scratching sound came from deep inside it that I’d heard earlier through the door. I bent lower to look in and was met with a pair of glowing yellow eyes and a growl.

“It’s alive!” I shrank back.

Ilya stepped out of the crowd, coming closer. “What is it? It couldn’t be that big since it fits in the basket.”

I peered in again. A scowl of a river hound stared back at me with its yellow eyes and sharp red teeth. Except that all of it was much smaller than it should be.

“It’s a puppy,” I gasped, sitting back on my haunches. “A river hound puppy.”

The thing was smaller than a cat. Its downy fur was still fluffy, not sleek like that of a fully grown river hound. It lowered its head and flattened its big ears against its head, trying but failing to look intimidating. It simply was too adorable to look scary.

“It’s so cute,” Ilya squeaked in a sing-sing voice, watching the puppy over my shoulder. Catching himself, he cleared his throat, then said in a deeper, manlier voice. “He looks like a plump dumpling on skinny legs.”

“A dumpling?” I giggled. The resemblance was definitely there. “But what am I to do with it?”

Kazimir opened his mouth, “The beast absolutely needs to be—”

I silenced him by lifting a finger, unwilling to hear whatever cruel treatment he might’ve dreamed up for my dog.

“That was a rhetorical question, Elder Kazimir. We’re good. Dumpling and me. We’ll figure it out. Come here, buddy.” I reached inside the basket to lift the puppy out, but it growled again, snapping its teeth at my hand.

“You can’t bring this spawn of hellhound into our midst,” Kazimir warned ominously.

“It’s a river hound,” I corrected. “Not a hellhound. And well, he...or she is already here. So...” I shoved the door to my wagon open with my elbow and carefully tipped the basket on its side, anxious to get the puppy out of Kazimir’s sight.

Maybe the smell of smoked meat would entice the elder more than the aroma of baking did, and he’d follow everyone else to the community hall soon?

“Here, Dumpling, you must be hungry. River hounds often are.” I ripped a piece of sausage and offered it to the puppy.

Its focus shifted from me to the sausage. Slowly moving the meat away from its nose, I lured the puppy out of the basket and over the threshold of my wagon.

It walked out slowly, crouching low on its short skinny legs. The noise of so many people seemed to unnerve it, and I hoped it’d feel better inside.

“It’s all yours, buddy.” I tossed the piece of sausage into the wagon. The puppy darted after it, and I promptly closed the door behind him.

Ilya breathed right next to my ear, watching the puppy’s every move with me until the door closed.

“I can help you look after him,” he suggested, clearly enthralled by the fuzzy little creature.

“She can’t keep it,” Kazimir protested. “The settlement barely has enough food to feed the children.”

I bit my tongue, holding back a snappy reply that might get both me and the puppy in trouble. But where were his concerns about the food for the children when he demanded we burn the boar and throw away everything Agor brought?

“I can catch the frogs and lizards in the swamp to feed your dog,” Ilya offered.

“That’ll be very helpful.” I smiled before turning to the elder. “River hounds are smart, strong, and great for protection. I’ll raise it to defend the settlement. It’ll be a village guard, just like me.”

I picked up the empty basket with a couple of bones rattling on the bottom. Agor must’ve put them in there for the puppy to chew on something on their way here.

I threw a quick look around, searching against all odds for the solid shape of an orc that, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Then I opened the door and walked inside to make better acquaintances with my newest present.

“Stubborn, insufferable woman,” Kazimir mumbled, stomping away.