Chapter 35
35
Kargorr
H e would not just offer Lord Gannag’s parog the syrup-crusted pork, though that would certainly sweeten the deal they had already accepted.
It wasn’t enough to have an ally, just like it wasn’t enough to have a yapira . One must care for them, too, and keep the pot appealing. Relationships had needs to be tended, and the better his bonds fared, the stronger they were.
He wouldn’t just listen to his yapira because it was good and right advice, and he counted himself fortunate to have a companion who brought wisdom to his hearth. He would do it to please her, too, because the happier Cedar was, the better he felt, basking in her warmth instead of freezing in her cold.
So Lord Kargorr set about to creating an appealing campsite that the other grrosek could call home during the time they spent here, before they traveled south and conquered new lands. He considered their orclings and what they might need to be comfortable and find entertainment. He had the baths expanded and ordered new cooks to be trained to accommodate the incoming force.
Orgha had not yet returned when Lord Gannag finally arrived. It unsettled Kargorr to not have his right hand at his side during such a momentous event, but he would have to trust himself to manage whatever might come.
Lord Gannag himself waited on his cat just outside the entrance to the parog for Kargorr to come out and greet him. They each thumped their chests and nodded.
“Welcome to our parog ,” Kargorr said. “As it is now yours.”
He would make this lord feel like a valued guest, and then it would be easier to give him commands later, when it mattered most. That was when Kargorr would enforce who was truly in charge of this affair.
Settling in was no easy task. Lord Gannag had arrived with his own tents and poles, animals and gear, but his mammoths could not descend into the lowlands with their sledges. Lord Kargorr sent many of his own to assist, and it required days upon days of hard labor to transport all of Gannag’s parog and their many belongings.
In the meantime, Kargorr was grateful he had commissioned additional tents, though his leatherworkers and tailors had labored themselves into exhaustion. He had to extract Cedar personally at night so she did not overwork herself and put the orcling at risk.
She had put up a surprising amount of fight about it. She wanted to be helpful, to put in the same hours of work the others were, but he would not allow his yapira to run herself into the ground.
Though the first wave of grrosek had only just settled into their new tents and others were still coming, it was a fine night, and Lord Kargorr was grateful for the clear sky and warm air that came in on a breeze as the bonfire was lit and the drums began.
His next gift: a marvelous celebration of Lord Gannag’s arrival.
With her permission, two of Cedar’s pigs were cooked alongside fresh venison, and even chickens that had persisted throughout the winter. Ale flowed, and though the revelers did not all have roofs over their heads that night—and many would have to share their homes with strangers—they were in high spirits, enraptured in the promise of their mission southward.
We will conquer the humans. We will take back what is ours. We will, we will, we will. Kargorr was glad to listen in on these conversations, and as Cedar sat on his lap at the raised table beside Lord Gannag’s, a small smile played at her lips. She could hear it, too, and it pleased her.
He liked that it pleased her.
“Now that I’ve seen her with my own eyes,” Lord Gannag said, drawing Lord Kargorr’s attention, “I understand your attraction, Kargorr.”
The other orc spoke in the grrosek ’s own tongue, of course. Cedar turned her head and tilted it to show she didn’t understand.
“He is complimenting you,” Kargorr told her, possessively patting her rounded belly. “Indeed,” he answered the other lord. “There is much to admire about her.”
Lord Gannag laughed and lifted his mug of mead. “A good choice of concubine.” Then he threw it back and drank.
The word concubine unsettled Lord Kargorr, and he couldn’t help glancing at Cedar’s face. She did not show she comprehended, though that perhaps irritated him more. She couldn’t understand what Gannag said about her and telling her would only upset the balance between them.
“She will bear me a fine orcling,” was all Kargorr said as he drank from his own vessel. It was dishonest, but necessary—perhaps a strategy more critical now than ever before.
This lord could not know how a human woman held Kargorr’s heart in her tiny little hands, or how she could crush it into bloody flesh if she so chose.
Cedar
She did not like the look of Lord Gannag, not at all.
It wasn’t that he was ugly, or any uglier than any other orc. In fact, he might even be more handsome than Kargorr in a tedious sort of way. He had no great puckered scar, no blaze in his eyes, none of the same ferocity and hunger for action as her orc did.
And he was not nearly so tall.
Her orc. Cedar saw how many of the new warriors looked at him. They did not hide their interest in him, as many of Lord Kargorr’s orcs did. Kargorr’s own camp had seen what Cedar meant to their lord, but these newcomers were different. Orc men and women alike passed by their table with offerings to thank Lord Kargorr for welcoming them, but it clearly meant much more than that to some.
Many gifts were quite elaborate, valuable objects that made Cedar feel sick to her stomach. Those who left such gifts, she knew, were hoping for a measure of Lord Kargorr’s attention in exchange. She did not like that, despite her presence, they felt so confident as to make their interest in him known.
But Cedar was a possession, much like these carved animals and hunting knives and bone jewelry, and Lord Kargorr did not dissuade any of them from believing they might have a chance at him.
Cedar especially didn’t like Lord Gannag’s roaming eyes, how he stared at her when he thought Lord Kargorr was not looking. She could, though she pretended not to, understand what he said about her. His gaze combed her body, removing her layers of clothing, and Cedar resisted the urge to cover herself. Instead, she smiled prettily, though it unnerved her.
But Kargorr did not hide his ownership of her, frequently stroking her belly, and grinding her ass down against his groin as the night wore on and the alcohol worked on him. And as the orcs around the fire divided carefully into two groups, then began to mingle... the alcohol worked on them, too. Orcs from each side went out to greet the others, and many coupled off. This could be a great boon, Cedar thought as she watched them, as perhaps other orclings were being made between the two groups. It could unify them, help them work together better and serve Kargorr’s cause.
She wondered when she had come to care so much about his success, about his mission, when it should haunt her.
Perhaps it was that she found life here much more suited to her. She ate well and slept in warm furs, and she had Kiya. It was more than she’d ever been given by humankind, so maybe it was best that they fell to the orcs. Orcs believed children should have childhoods and would not sell off their own young for a cow.
The moon was high in the sky when Lord Kargorr hooked his thumbs in her pants and pulled them down her thighs. His fingers ventured up under her tunic, and he growled in her ear as he eased himself inside her. Cedar watched the other orcs, many buried up to the hilt in each other, as Kargorr fucked her in his lap, and she would have met her finish much sooner had Lord Gannag not been avidly watching the entire time.
Kargorr carefully did not use those lumps at the base of his cock on her, his sarga , which felt significant. That was only for them, in private, she understood now.
His seed was still dripping from her thighs when she heard Gannag speak.
“Perhaps when you are done,” he said dryly in Orcish, “I could whet her on my own cock.”
Lord Kargorr sat up abruptly, still lodged in her. “I must not have heard you correctly,” he said in a warning tone. “Surely you are not asking for my concubine’s cunt?”
This time, Cedar could not hide that she understood. Her eyes went wide and she gaped at Lord Gannag, as Kargorr’s hands tightened around her.
“Ah,” Gannag said, smiling ruefully. “She knows more of our language than you think, Kargorr. Still, she is but your toy, is she not?”
Was that how he spoke of her when she wasn’t around? Of course it was. They all knew her as his concubine, and concubine only.
“She is bearing my orcling,” Lord Kargorr said at last, his cock sliding out of her.
“Then she’ll bear mine next,” said Gannag. “Once she has shown she can produce such strong offspring as you predict, perhaps your next gift to me can be this lovely wet basket of yours.”
A ripple of pure rage spread down Cedar’s spine. Surely he wasn’t asking this.
That’s when she heard a growl behind her, low and rumbling, as threatening as one of the cats when they fought over a scrap of leftover meat. Lord Gannag quirked a brow as Kargorr clutched her closer, tighter.
“She is not for sale,” Lord Kargorr said gruffly. It was clear that he was reining in his baser impulses, because his body was nearly vibrating underneath hers.
“But you have given me so many lovely gifts tonight, perhaps you can grant me this one more?” Lord Gannag stumbled closer. “No pretty orc woman from your parog has propositioned me tonight. That is rather unfair, isn’t it, when your own cock fares much better?”
The big orc leaned forward, so his face was in Cedar’s. Lord Kargorr surged to his feet behind her, immense, scarred, his eyes like the night.
“I think it fair that I have a hole in which to spend myself,” Lord Gannag said with an eerie smile.
Cedar answered. She answered quickly, her hand moving before she had a moment to think twice about what her actions might mean, what consequences they might have. The slap of flesh echoed, carrying in the night air.
She withdrew her hand, holding it close to her chest as if protecting an offending animal that didn’t know better. Lord Gannag’s head was turned to one side, the skin across his cheek dark green from where she’d struck him. Her fingers reflexively fell to her dagger, tucked into the belt around her waist.
It was only then Cedar realized the whole gathering had gone quiet, and every orc nearby was watching. Others approached, now that it had been noticed the two lords were already in conflict.
This was everything she had been trying to avoid, and now she was right at the center of it.