Chapter 36
36
Kargorr
H is marvelous woman.
Lord Kargorr’s rage quieted just for this moment as he gazed upon her, at her shaking shoulders and proud, angry face. Cedar had understood precisely what Lord Gannag said about her, and she had acted. She was beautiful and strong, and would make a fine mother to his orclings. Her ferocity represented everything he sought to create, the shape of the world he wished to carve from stone and flesh.
It would all look like her, right now, having spoken against a great, powerful, terrifying lord.
“A concubine?” asked Lord Gannag, slowly turning his head back to face them. He glared down his nose at Cedar and raised his own hand. “A concubine would hit me?” He was rippling with his fury, and when his fist swung in retaliation...
Lord Kargorr caught it. He seized the other kazek ’s wrist, and slowly, with a far superior strength, lowered Gannag’s arm.
“Perhaps you have not heard me,” Lord Kargorr snarled. “This woman is mine , bearing my orclings, forever until the end of time. You will not put your cock in her. Ever .” His own rage burned bright as he brought Cedar to his side, and his hand fell to the long knife he kept at his waist for eating.
“She is a plaything.” Lord Gannag spit on the ground. “A body for our pleasure, and I’ve had to watch you have all the fun.” His beady eyes hung on Cedar, who now remained at Kargorr’s side. “She is human, Kargorr. She is nothing. And now, she will die for what she’s done.”
“You will not touch my yapira !”
Lord Kargorr’s bellow rang out over the silent camp. As soon as the words were spoken aloud, though, an audible objection rose up from the assembled orcs.
But many on Kargorr’s side of the fire were silent. He saw them nodding, as if this had come to be understood already by many.
He had said it. He had said it aloud, for everyone to hear.
“Your yapira ?” Gannag asked, aghast. “This human?”
“Yes.” Kargorr couldn’t un-say what he’d said. It was the truth, after all. “I bonded to her many moons ago.”
It felt as if a great weight had fallen from his shoulders. Though he faced judgment out around the fire, for the first time since finding Cedar, he felt as if he was truly himself.
“And you have used your sarga ? On a human ?” Lord Gannag shook his head. “And this is the orc I’ve chosen to align myself with.”
“You will not question my character,” snapped Lord Kargorr, and he pulled the knife free. “I can cut you down for your insults, or you can sit back down, and drink your mead, and perhaps find a ripe woman tonight.”
Quiet fell as Lord Gannag shook with his fury. He sized up Kargorr, and it could be a bloodbath between them—but that would sow chaos and death among their parog .
“We share a purpose, a mission,” said Lord Kargorr, running his hand down Cedar’s side. “Do not throw that away because I have chosen a mighty yapira , whom you have deeply insulted.”
Lord Gannag growled, but did not advance. Kargorr was prepared, his muscles taut and ready. He would do whatever he needed to defend Cedar and his parog .
With a great sigh, the other kazek picked up his mug. Then he slung back his mead.
“Then give me a woman,” Gannag said with a growl. “I want one of these humans, who has so fine of a cunt that she can call an orc lord her agsan .”
Kargorr’s shoulders loosened, and he took a heavy breath before he slapped Lord Gannag on the back.
“Of course,” Kargorr said amiably, as if none of this had ever happened. “That’s the wonderful thing about conquest. There are many more humans to be found. Perhaps you will find your own yapira .”
Lord Gannag scoffed. “I will not succumb to that weakness,” he said gruffly. He glanced at Cedar, who now stood stricken. “Though some fine, half-orc offspring...”
He went on about the virtues of half-orcs, their superior sight and fine craftsmanship, but Kargorr could not forget his own words.
He had, at last, announced to the world who Cedar was to him. It was now done and could not be undone.
And he was grateful for that.
Cedar
She had fully expected to die. Or at least be lashed until she bled and begged.
The revelry went wild after the lords settled their conflict. When at last Kargorr rose to his feet and announced he and his yapira were off to bed, it was met with hoots and hollers and cheers.
Kargorr took Cedar’s hand and brought his lips to her forehead before whisking her away to their tent. As they passed through the crowd, Cedar caught sight of Rathka, who had her arms crossed with a touch of amusement playing on her lips.
Once inside the tent, Lord Kargorr did not even let them reach the bed first. He whirled her around in his arms and slid up her tunic to expose her growing breasts.
“My fierce woman,” he said, pausing to lick her nipples, panting as he sucked on them. Cedar’s chest arched into him, and he curled his arm around her waist to hold her fast. “Willing to strike a grrosek lord for his insults.” He hungrily took her whole breast in his palm and feasted on it while she moaned and tangled her hands in his hair.
“I... I would not be a hole ,” Cedar said, interrupting herself with gasps.
“Indeed,” Kargorr murmured, finally releasing her. “You may be human, but you have the ferocity of an orc.”
That felt like a compliment. She wanted to be ferocious, to be feared, as Kargorr was.
“Now,” Kargorr said, kneeling to pull her pants down, which were still wet with his seed, “will you say it?” He dragged his lips from her calves to her thighs, then to the crux of her legs. He continued upward, rising to his feet, until he stood high above her, one hand on her cheek.
Cedar pressed her lips together. Was she his now? It begged another question: Was he hers?
“Will you ever take another?” Cedar asked instead, and Kargorr furrowed his brow.
“Another?” His mouth tilted up at the corner. “No. I do not have the time or energy for another one of you. You are enough for a single orc to manage.”
It was, perhaps, the first time he had made a joke in Cedar’s presence, and a startled laugh came out of her.
“And you will make me your partner, and not your concubine?” she asked, and his roaming hand stilled at her side.
Kargorr let out a great sigh and bowed his head.
“You already are this,” he said, surprisingly quiet. “You have given me great wisdom and tempered me. And I have shown you very little care or thanks in return.”
Cedar merely stared up at him, for she didn’t recognize this behemoth of an orc, with the scar across his face and the hard, downward curve to his tusked mouth. What were these words of his?
“Then,” Cedar said, reaching to stroke his chin up to his tusk, “I suppose I can be what you want.”
His eyes went wide, then they narrowed in a plain, feral hunger. He snatched her up off the ground and carried her to the bed, where he set her down and quickly disposed of his own clothes. Then he sat before her, his legs spread, his huge cock jutting up toward the sky, and held his hands open, palms up.
“Come to me, then,” he said in a low voice. “Make use of me and show me your orcish fire.”
Kargorr
She did.
How gloriously Cedar sank down on his cock, sitting astride him on her knees. When she raised herself up and then took him in again, her belly bounced, and her round breasts teased his eyes as they responded to every movement. She would feed his orcling quite well, and he would never fear for its safety as long as it was with her.
When her thighs grew tired and she had already sought her finish twice, Lord Kargorr flipped her onto her back and fucked her deeper, harder, nursing cries and screams from her plush lips.
“Tell me,” he growled, sinking further into her, his sarga insisting that she open for him.
“I’m yours,” she sobbed in return. And then, he was fully encased in her wet warmth, fully with her, inside her, reveling in her.
They lay quietly for some time afterwards, his swollen cock still firmly rooted inside Cedar’s perfect cunt. His hand wandered her body, pausing at her belly.
“The old witch,” Cedar said suddenly. “She told me the baby would be weaker if... if you weren’t my agsan . Does this change anything?”
He scoffed. “She is wrong.” Kargorr let his hair fall over both of them like a curtain. “But perhaps you have been my yapira since the beginning, and that is why the leaves turned red as blood. Our orcling will be mighty, fearsome, powerful. I know this already.” And he did. This offspring would take the helm for him someday, and once the world was theirs, he would quietly recede with Cedar at his side, for the rest of eternity.
“I hope they are wise, too,” said Cedar carefully. “Not just strong, but quick. There is as much strength in cleverness as in brute force.”
Kargorr arched an eyebrow at her. “That is what you will bring, then. Teaching our orcling to use their head, as much as their fists.”
That night, for the first time, perhaps in his life, Lord Kargorr slept knowing that it all was as it should be. Though there was far more to do, for now, this was the right place, the right time, with the right woman at his side.
The camp was slow to wake the following day as the grrosek shook off the fog of drink and the haze of copulating. Lord Kargorr wondered in the silence, as Cedar still slept, how many orclings were made while the sun was down.
What roused him from his bed was the sound of a beating drum and a few scattered cheers.
While Cedar yawned, he quickly dressed and left the tent.
“ Kazek !” He would know that voice anywhere. It was Orgha, at last returned.
And he was not alone.
Behind him was the caravan he had departed with, and behind them, a horde of grrosek , that went on as far as Kargorr could see. He slapped his right hand hard on his back, and Orgha coughed.
“You have brought me a gift,” Kargorr said, his face slack.
“Indeed. Lord Rukhan heard my missive and responded well.” Orgha turned as another orc appeared, a behemoth of a creature with a wide, mighty face. He was even bigger than Kargorr, truly a beast, and he rode the biggest cat to ever live.
“Your presence is greatly welcomed,” Lord Kargorr said as Lord Rukhan dismounted. Rukhan thumped his chest, as did Kargorr in return, and then the other orc’s stern lips broke out into a mad, wicked smile.
“I am only here because Orgha promised me many human heads would roll,” Lord Rukhan said with a feral look in his eye. “I will join any effort to this end, as strange as it might be to find so many of our kind squirreled away in one place.” He eyed the massive parog that had doubled in size already. “I hope that there is still room for us.”
“We will make room.” Kargorr’s voice carried over the sound of drumbeats. “And we will then move southward, to take what is ours.”
He knew Cedar was approaching before he even saw her, and turned to bring her under his arm. Orgha quirked a brow, but did not speak.
“Make yourself at home,” Lord Kargorr said, “though please, do not insult my yapira or she may strike you the way she struck Lord Gannag last night.”
A huge, booming laugh streamed out of Lord Rukhan.
“A human, no less,” he said, eyeing Cedar’s belly. “I thought we were here to kill them, not breed them.”
She tensed at Kargorr’s side, but he stroked her arm.
“I do not know if all of them are as bullheaded as mine,” said Kargorr, “but she is as fierce as any orc and will raise fine warriors. Many of them.”
Lord Rukhan seemed to consider this as they began welcoming in the new arrivals. It would be madness for some time, Lord Kargorr knew, trying to get them all settled. But he handed out commands, and Orgha spread the word, even as he reunited with his own yapira .
They would have time later, but for now, the construction of Kargorr’s mighty city would begin.