CHAPTER TWO（Untitled）Wranth

CHAPTER TWO

Wranth

I sit off to the side of the campfire as the rest of the king’s guard talk and tell after-dinner tales. Our unicorn mounts graze at the other end of the meadow, faint white shapes in the darkness of night. The wind is cool and pleasant, blowing away the lingering scent of roasted meat and leaving behind the freshness of pine. The orange firelight flickers off the close line of tree trunks and the green faces of the orcs gathered in a loose circle, sitting on logs.

It should be comfortable. I’ve camped hundreds of nights with this same group of orcs. Yet the mood isn’t as welcoming as the village I just left.

Grugg gets up to go into the woods to take a piss, making sure to knock my shoulder as he goes by.

I bare my tusks and pause for a split second. Now that my best and only friend, Sturrm, has officially left our company, the rest jockey to see who will take his place in the hierarchy. If I let this slight slide, I will be pushed even more to the outside than I am now. We are warriors, all. Orcs respect strength.

And the anger that constantly boils in my blood refuses to remain contained.

I surge to my feet, using the power of my thighs to bury my shoulder in Grugg’s side.

He staggers backward with a grunt, his green face darkening with anger.

A growl rumbles from my chest, a feral glee filling me as my hands ball into fists. This? This old familiar anger is what I need.

“No blades drawn,” I grit out, unbuckling my sword belt. They’re ancient orc words, brought from our home realm of Avalon. We are a fractious people, prone to brawling. Instead of suppressing our nature, we agree to keep fights to fists. “No harm done.”

Grugg gives a sharp nod and repeats the words, tossing his sword to a friend.

The others leap to their feet and surround us, hemming us into a fighting ring. I hand my sword to Brokk, one of the friendlier guards, and he offers me an excited grin and tips his head toward my opponent. Grugg’s not as popular as he likes to think he is.

We’ve sparred in the past—all of the guard practice against each other in order that we may know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, the better to fight side by side—so I know Grugg is cocky.

Just as he knows I have too much temper if properly riled.

His first swing is overconfident, a showy roundhouse that leaves his front wide open.

I step inside the arc of his strike and plow a sharp punch into his gut before dancing back out of the way, my feet a whisper on the grass.

He snaps his tusks at me and jabs a fist toward my face. When I dodge, he drops down and lashes out with his foot, raking my calves in a leg sweep.

I topple backward, turning the fall into a roll. But the underhanded move boils my blood, doing just what he hoped. The world washes red, my vision tunneling until I see nothing but Grugg’s taunting face.

With a roar, I leap forward, fist plowing straight into his smirking mouth in a flash of pain as his tusks slice my knuckles. It’s quickly followed by red-hot agony as he slams a punch into my ribs.

We close quarters then, arms a blur as we exchange a volley of blows. Rage fills my chest, pushing the pain far away. I will fight and fight and not stop until he’s a bloody pulp at my feet. I will—

“Enough!” King Aldronn’s voice rings with command, cutting through my blood lust like the slice of a moon steel blade.

We turn toward where he stands backlit by the fire, an orc in his prime. He’s emerged from his tent, his close advisors by his side. About a decade older than me, he’s got the muscle mass of a warrior, and the sword at his hip is definitely not for show. He exudes an air of easy command, a person who knows their exact place in the world.

Unlike me.

The enigma. The orphan. The only orc in this entire realm who doesn’t know who his parents are or where he truly belongs.

“My King.” My back straightens as I dip my head, Grugg mirroring my actions.

“Wranth, come walk with me.”

What can he want? I’ve been a member of his guard for years yet never one of his advisors.

Grugg shoots me a gleeful look, obviously thinking the worst. But we guards brawl all the time. I hardly think this newest altercation is enough to sway the king’s opinion.

I retrieve my sword from Brokk and strap the belt around my waist, ignoring the flare of pain from my side. Grugg might have landed a solid blow, but I did even better, his face already swollen and bruised.

Aldronn heads off across the meadow, and I pace by his side. With the campfire at our backs, my eyes adjust quickly to the dark. Stars dot the deep-purple sky overhead, the night unbroken by any moon. Our goddess hides her face.

“Did you discover anything during your stay in Moon Blade Village?” King Aldronn asks. “Anything that points as to why the Moon Goddess keeps gifting moon bound brides to only the orcs of that one village?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Dravarr is a strong warlord, as his mother Leyva was before him, but other villages have equally strong leaders. The people are happy and productive, but again, it’s not noticeably different from the other villages.” I’d know. As one of the king’s guard, I travel with him for most of the year from one village to the next. King Aldronn is a hands-on leader who prefers to go out among his people and solve problems directly instead of resting within the safety of his castle walls and making them come to him with petitions.

“I can’t imagine the cleaning stone offers them that much of an advantage,” he says.

I shrug. Each orc village rests near one of the magical standing stones of Alarria, which offer us useful services and goods. The cleaning stone does laundry and makes the tooth-cleaning berries and cleaning cloths used across the land. Each time you wet them, their magic refreshes, making them handy for bathing or cleaning.

But Aldronn’s right. Is that any more useful than the glow stones we use to light the night or the fire stones that let us easily cook our food and warm our homes?

He turns his sharp eyes on me, his mouth a firm line broken only by his tusks. “And you can think of nothing else?”

My thoughts flicker back to Moon Blade Village. My recent stay was the longest I’ve ever remained in one village, and without the rest of the king’s guard surrounding me, I had only the villagers to interact with.

At first there were the questions I always get. Is it true I was found in the castle woods as a babe with no one the wiser as to how I got there? Were there really no unaccounted pregnancies in all the realm? Do I really not know who my parents are?

But after a few days, those faded away, and I became Wranth, the warrior ready to help protect the village. Then once I started assisting the hunters, I became celebrated for the feasts, welcomed when I entered the pub, people asking me to sit and drink with them.

That’s where I’d be now, in fact, if I were still there. I’d be at the pub, listening to Sturrm sing or Branikk tell the tale of this day’s hunt, his voice lively, his hands doing half the talking.

A pang pinches my chest. Something I’ve never felt before. I’ve never had a home, a place I belong, but Moon Blade Village felt like it could become one.

“They’re good people, and the human women are very happy,” I say. “The goddess must have known it would be this way.”

Aldronn grunts but doesn’t disagree. He stops and turns back toward the fire, so I do the same. The dark silhouettes of the other orcs show against the bright orange, their voices carrying as they talk. They have all the easy camaraderie I finally felt in Moon Blade Village.

“If it gets to be too much, let me know,” Aldronn says.

“My King?”

“The hazing.”

Mortification flushes through me at the thought that he knows I don’t belong. “There’s no—”

“No. No lies.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I know I may stay a bit apart from all of you, but I still have eyes. With Sturrm gone, it will be harder for you. Yet I value your service, Wranth. I would have you and your strong sword arm at my side.”

“It is yours, My King.”

“Good.”

Yet it turns out I lied.

Because a haunting song pulls me from sleep, light brightening my tent until the leather glows silver.

I throw off my furs and leap outside.

The moon descends from the sky, a swirling ball of pure white shot through with blue lightning. The voice of the goddess sings through me, vibrating my bones and plucking the strings of my heart. A yearning, greater than any I have ever known, pierces my soul, almost sending me to my knees.

“Yes,” I growl, answering her summons with every fiber of my being. “Yes.”

The Moon Goddess darts forward, splashing across my eyes in a blaze of white.

I stand stunned for several moments, and the world wakes around me, the other orcs leaving their tents. As I blink away the afterimages of her brightness, the night returns to darkness. But I need no light to see where I must go. A rope wrapped around my heart tugs, spinning me toward the southwest.

“You are summoned,” King Aldronn says from behind me. “The goddess has chosen you.”

“Yes.” It’s the only word I can speak, yet it says everything I need to as I enter this new phase of my life. No longer simply the king’s man, I have been called to a higher purpose.

I will ride for however long it takes.

And at the end of my journey, I will claim my moon bound bride.