Chapter 6

GURREK

T oday at the forge, while I was working on a new butcher knife for Dakar, I heard an odd sound—the squeak of a door, maybe, or perhaps just a mouse. I’ve considered getting a barn cat to deal with the mouse problem, as the little vermin tend to move indoors once the weather gets cold and find their way into my grain stores.

But part of me is sure it wasn’t a mouse. I could almost feel eyes on me, and it made the hair stand up all down my back. Curious, I’d turned around to find the source, but there was nobody in the forge except for me.

That’s for the best. I don’t need someone poking around my home with Sita here now. Unlike an orc woman, she can’t defend herself, especially not with those injured feet.

I wish she would stay off them like I keep telling her.

Taking a break from my hammering, I pump the bellows to bring more air into the forge and the flames fly high. I dip the blade into the fire, letting it heat up red-hot before withdrawing it again, and then I return to my hammering, trying to eke the shape I want out of the metal.

I attempt to return to that quiet place in my mind where there’s no Rulag, no wife, no sound at all besides the beating of my heart, but my thoughts keep wandering back to this morning when Sita emerged from her room wearing only a thin, tattered dress. It’s little more than a rag, and it didn’t do much to disguise her shape underneath it. Unlike her traveling clothes, it showed off her rather bountiful breasts, small waist, and curving hips. It landed at her knees, so her little calves were visible underneath—and they were far too skinny.

I will need to feed her much and often if she’s going to have enough fat on her to stay warm in the coming months. And I’ll have to work even harder here at the forge going through my backlog of requests if I’m going to afford everything I need to buy for her room.

The other villagers submit a request when they need something made, whether it’s an axe, a sickle, or simply a bauble to give to a partner. I have a small pile of orders sitting on my workbench that I’ve been slowly working my way through—rarely fast enough to keep up, though. Then again, I keep modest hours. I will extend those in the coming weeks so I can complete more requests and take payments sooner.

When I’m done grinding the edges of the knife to a perfect sharpness, I walk into the back room to look at what I have next. There, I smell it: that light floral aroma that follows Sita around wherever she goes.

I glance about the workshop, wondering if she’s here, but there’s no one in the room except for me. Hmm.

Then I remember an order in the pile from the carpenter, Naggen. Perhaps he would be open to the idea of trading a chair for his new chipping tool. I could build the chair myself, but it would take much longer than for someone who makes chairs all day.

Snatching up the work order, I close up the forge and lock the doors before leaving. The sun is sitting low in the sky as I make my way into the village, toward Naggen’s workshop. He’s finished for the night, and the light in his workshop is dark.

I knock on his front door instead. His wife, a rather large orc woman I’ve known since childhood, answers it.

“I’m looking for Naggen?”

With a grunt, she fetches her husband, and then guides their small child over to the table to eat.

“What is it?” the carpenter asks, drying his hands off on a cloth.

I hold up his work order. “I’ll do this for you tomorrow if you build me a chair.”

He cocks his head. “What sort of chair?”

“A dining room chair. Small enough for a human.”

A smirk crosses his face. “For your new wife, eh?”

I want to shut him up, but I also need him to make the chair for me, so I offer a tight smile. “Yes. For her. It needs to be her size.”

Naggen turns to where his child is seated in an adult chair and strokes his chin. “I need to make one for the youngling, too,” he says, “so I’ll make them both the same size. Maybe that will suit her.”

I’m humiliated by the idea of my own wife needing a youngling’s chair.

“All right,” I force out. “Thank you. I’ll have this tool to you in the evening tomorrow.”

He chuckles. “At least you have a wife now, Gurrek. Be grateful. Even if she looks like her nose was stretched out of her face.” He leans closer. “I bet she’s small and tight.”

At the very last moment, I manage to keep my fist from finding a home in Naggen’s face. It disgusts me down to my core to hear him talk about Sita this way. A horrible thing to say about a woman, not to mention my wife.

Instead, I turn around and stride off without a word so I don’t do something I’ll regret. But my head feels like it’s on fire as I stalk back home, past Merka’s house, where I don’t even notice her waving at me.

“Gurrek, you idiot, use your eyes!”

I spin around at the sound of her voice and come to a stop.

“Finally,” she grumps as she joins me on the path. “You look like you’re about to rip someone’s head off.”

“No, I don’t,” I grunt.

“I saw your wife today.” Her eyes glint in the fading sunlight. “Mighty pretty out there wandering alone. I wondered if a bear might eat her.”

What? Sita was out and walking around on her own? Damn it.

“I told her to stay inside!”

Then I think back to it, only to belatedly realize she had no idea what I was saying.

Merka quirks a brow. “She doesn’t seem to take orders well.”

I let out a sigh I feel like I’ve been holding in all day. If Merka’s right, then it probably was Sita I heard in the workshop this afternoon. She must have been the one I felt watching me.

What was she doing? I have to hope she’s just familiarizing herself with the property and not looking for an escape route. I don’t think Rulag would take kindly to that.

It would reflect rather poorly on me, too, if my new wife ran away from me.

“Well, no surprise.” Merka draws my attention back to her endlessly chattering mouth. “You told her to stay inside all day, doing what?”

“Nothing!” It’s not that big of a request, is it? To simply do nothing?

She crosses her arms. “Would you be happy if someone told you to do nothing all day?”

I flounder for a good response. The truth is no, of course not. I couldn’t possibly sit around idly all day, not when there’s so much that needs doing.

I think of Sita trying to get the water for washing last night, and I told her firmly to stop. Perhaps she’s the type of person who doesn’t know how to sit idly by, either. Then I tried to imprison her.

She also hasn’t eaten lunch, I realize, though I had plenty of nuts and dried berries to eat while I was working in the forge today. Damn it again.

“I’d better go deal with this,” I hiss, turning back toward my house. “And somehow figure out how to communicate with her.”

Merka cocks her head. “She speaks no Orcish at all?”

“None.”

My friend makes a pitying noise. “Perhaps I can help.”

“You?” I furrow my brow. “But you’re busy with your own work and home.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t help your wife acclimate to her new life.” Merka wags a finger at me. “You have many resources at your disposal. Don’t try to take this all on, or you’ll drive yourself mad.”

I huff in irritation, mostly because she’s right. There’s much I don’t know about living with a human, and Sita could certainly use a mentor to help her learn our tongue and our way of life. I don’t have the time or the patience.

And perhaps Merka could keep her busy. Clearly my new wife must have tasks to do if she’s to stay out of trouble. The last thing I need is for her to wander around the woods alone and find herself face-to-face with a bear or a cougar. She would certainly lose.

I grit my teeth at the thought. I should go home now and check on her to make sure she returned from her little amble safely.

“I’ve got to go,” I say with a wave, “but I’ll give her to you tomorrow.”

Merka smirks. “So eager to get rid of her already?”

“She’s a great burden.” I hold up my fingers to start counting them off. “Food, clothing, furniture... she’ll need all of it.”

Her lips purse. “If you think that way, you’ll never be happy.”

I roll my eyes. Who said I was after happiness? I simply want survival and peaceful cohabitation. This might be my fate now, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

“Tomorrow,” I repeat, and then continue on my way down the path to my house. Merka snorts behind me.

When I arrive home, I find the delightful aroma of food filling the house. There’s no one to be seen, but there’s a pan on the stove cooking up vegetables, and a spit with meat has been propped over the fire pit.

“Sita?” I call out. I find it unlikely that a stranger has come in to cook dinner, but I don’t see her anywhere.

“Gurrek?” Sita pokes her head out of her room, and her smile is shockingly radiant when she sees me. She emerges, walking well on her bandaged feet, and heads past me to the stovetop in order to flip the vegetable patties she has cooking.

“Where did you find all the food?” I ask her, but she simply cocks her head.

I forget that she can’t understand my words. With a sigh, I flick one hand at the food in the pan, and then around the house.

“ Where ?” I ask, in the human tongue—one of a handful of words I know.

Sita walks over to the cellar door and tugs it open, then points inside. So she found my stores. I’m not sure how to feel about that, as I never gave her permission to go in there and root around. I would have cooked dinner for myself tonight, just as I do every night. But Sita’s smile is so pleasant, bright and begging for affirmation, that I sigh. I was the one who didn’t return to feed her lunch, after all. She must have been starving.

“Thank you,” I say, bending my neck. Again, she looks at me like a little bird.

“Thank you?” she repeats.

I nod and point at the food she has cooking, then at her. “Thank you.”

Her smile widens and she shakes her head rapidly, as if she doesn’t need my thanks.

When the food is finished cooking, I shoo Sita away and take care of serving from the big cast-iron pans myself. The idea of her handling them makes me nervous. She’s so small and weak that she might just drop one on her own feet.

Once more, she refuses the chair and goes to sit in the living room in front of the fire while she eats. I look forward to bringing my gift home tomorrow night.

The thought makes me pause. Why? Why do I want this so much? I suppose it would be less awkward and more companionable. And she shouldn’t be sitting on the floor while she eats.

We will need to learn to get along if we don’t want the rest of our lives to be miserable.

The rest of our lives . I glance into the living room at the small woman trying to eat off a plate on her lap. I will be tied to her forever now. Should another chance appear at finding an orc wife, it won’t be mine.

I search for that serene resting place inside me. I can’t despair. I have to find what will make this work, and cling to it with everything I have.

When Sita catches me looking at her, she smiles, but I turn away again.

Perhaps, in time, I could find an affection of some kind for her—at least enough to make a whole life at her side bearable. But she’s so small, so soft, so fragile... I cannot entertain the idea that she could truly be my wife, in every way.

It’s impossible.