Chapter 35 #4
“Next, the Bautul fighting-pit!” Rosa announced, waving them toward a nearby door.
And when Raye accompanied Gaelfr inside, she found herself standing at the top of an echoing, torch-lit room, blinking down toward a large pit, cut into the stone below.
And in the pit, there must have been a dozen huge, bare-chested orcs, all sparring and wrestling together, grunting and shouting and swinging wooden swords and axes through the air.
It was quite a sight, Raye could admit, but the best sight of all was Svein.
He was sitting nearby with Kalfr on what appeared to be large stone steps, or perhaps benches, cut into the floor leading down to the pit, and he was excitedly bouncing up and down and cheering, while Kalfr grinned beside him.
“Look at that, Papa!” Svein exclaimed, wildly gesturing toward where a massive orc — the one they’d already met named Skirvir — was swinging two gigantic wooden axes around his head. “No one else can even touch him, and — oh! Here’s Mama! And Papa Gaelfr! And Rosa and Daisy!”
He’d whipped around to beam at them, and then he leapt up and rushed over, hurling his arms around Raye’s waist. “We’ve been having so much fun, Mama!” he told her, his eyes shining. “Haven’t we, Papa?”
Raye fondly smiled back toward him, squeezing him tight. Kalfr had kept him safe, just as Gaelfr had promised, and she angled a grateful look up toward where Kalfr had come over to join them, his hand clasping Svein’s shoulder.
But Kalfr looked… odd. Flushed. And in lieu of answering Svein’s question, he was blinking up and down Raye’s body with strange, intense eyes, his lips parted.
As if something was wrong with her, and when Raye glanced downwards too, she found — oh.
Right. Her new clothes. The lovely, deep green dress, wrapped snug around her waist, with a plunging neckline that showed a hint of the racy black lace undergarment Gaelfr had insisted she wear beneath.
Raye’s face heated, while beside her, Gaelfr patted her back, and unmistakable pride flared across his face. “Our mate looks well, does she not?” he asked Kalfr, his chest puffing out. “I have gained her some good new garb to wear, with help from the Grisk and Ka-esh, also.”
He aimed a surprisingly grateful smile toward Rosa and Daisy, who were still hovering nearby, and Daisy waved it away, while Rosa grinned back toward him. “Yes, you look stunning, Raye,” she said firmly. “Doesn’t she, Kalfr?”
Kalfr blinked, once, but then his eyes found Raye’s face again, and a small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Ach,” he murmured. “She always does.”
Raye’s face burned even hotter, but she smiled back at him, and managed to ask him and Svein a few questions about the fighting-pit. Which Svein answered with animated glee, proclaiming the merits of various fighters, and announcing that he, too, would like a huge wooden axe to play with.
At that, Rosa caught Raye’s eye, and loudly pointed out that Orc Mountain’s school was the next stop on their tour.
A point that made Raye jolt to stare at her — there was an actual school, here at Orc Mountain?
But wait, Kalfr had mentioned something about that before, hadn’t he?
And Svein looked intrigued too, and eagerly skipped after Rosa toward the corridor again.
It turned out that the school was high up in the mountain, in the area preferred by the Ash-Kai clan.
The floor gently sloped upward as they went, the air thinner and cooler, and soon Raye could hear the rising chatter of young, excited voices, emanating from what appeared to be a glowing white door up ahead.
“Look, Mama!” Svein excitedly whispered, once they’d come to a stop before the door. “Wow!”
Raye fully shared his astonishment, because it was a busy, bright schoolroom, complete with coloured toys, books, and artwork, and a large horizontal window cut into one wall.
The room was occupied by several dozen young orcs of all ages, who seemed to be in the middle of a boisterous drumming lesson, led by a huge, toothily smiling orc.
The orc glanced toward them at the door, his eyes brightening at the sight of Kalfr and Svein, and he waved them in, without pausing his lesson.
And though Raye followed Svein and Kalfr inside, they were already earning curious looks from the drumming children, while across the room, two new orcs had emerged from a side door, both of them handsome and beautifully dressed.
And upon seeing Raye and Svein, the first orc stopped and stared, while the second one yelped, and rushed over toward them.
“Rosa!” he hissed under his breath, with a scandalized glance between Kalfr and Raye and Gaelfr. “When did this happen? Why did you not send for us the instant they arrived?!”
Rosa winced, and after a swift glance at their growing audience, she waved Kalfr and Svein ahead into the schoolroom, and then herded Raye and Gaelfr back out the door again.
Daisy and the two new orcs followed closely behind, and once they were well out of earshot of any listening students, Rosa introduced the two handsome new orcs as Kesst and Rathgarr, brothers from the Ash-Kai clan.
“I hope you will forgive our excitement in greeting you,” this Rathgarr said, with a sheepish smile toward Raye and Gaelfr, and a squeeze to his brother’s arm beside him. “We have only long wished for you to return here with your son. Enough that we may have…”
His voice faded, and he exchanged a meaningful glance with this Kesst, who then gave Gaelfr a far-too-innocent smile. “We may have sent some mail south,” Kesst said lightly. “I don’t suppose you’ve received any interesting artwork lately, hmmm?”
Interesting artwork? Raye blinked, while beside her, Gaelfr bristled, and his hand spasmed against his cloak. Against — right. Where he surely kept that portrait. The portrait of Kalfr, and that woman. Sybil.
“You did this?” Gaelfr demanded at Kesst, his voice deepening. “You sent this to me?”
Raye could feel his anger rising, curdling tense and disbelieving in the air, and surely Kesst did too, arching a cool brow back toward Gaelfr’s frowning face. “Indeed we did,” he replied, his voice crisp. “With some help from our resident artist, of course.”
He nodded toward Daisy, whose face was flushed, her hands twisting together.
“But — I hope it wasn’t — unwelcome,” she said toward Gaelfr, with a wince.
“We’ve all just been — worried about Kalfr.
He’s been so good to all of us, and that poisoning plot was such a mess, and it’s only gotten worse ever since.
And we just thought — if anyone could help, it would be you. Both of you.”
Beside Raye, Gaelfr’s anger was already deflating, and this Kesst jabbed a claw toward him. “And also,” he added, lowering his voice as he glanced up the corridor toward the schoolroom door, “you do know what’s been happening here lately, right? What Kalfr was planning to do?”
Gaelfr sharply exhaled, his mouth thinning, and Raye couldn’t hide her grimace, either.
So they’d all known that too, then? They’d all known Kalfr was going to sacrifice himself to Sybil and her men…
and they’d all still left him out there alone at his byrgi?
Waiting for his enemies to hunt him down, and kill him?
“If you all knew of this,” came Gaelfr’s voice beside Raye, dangerously low, “even in the Ash-Kai and Ka-esh clans — then why did you not send for me sooner. And why did you not do all within your power to stop this!”
Daisy blanched, while Kesst’s eyes flashed, and Rosa lurched in between them, her pointy chin lifted.
“We’ve been trying,” she hissed back. “But things have escalated quite quickly these past few weeks, and you have to concede that this is an excessively tricky situation to neatly resolve, with far-reaching consequences for the peace-treaty, and therefore every orc in this realm! Also” — she tossed her hair over her shoulder — “we did send for you, didn’t we? ”
Right. They had. Raye had begun stroking at Gaelfr’s rigid back, perhaps not only for his sake, but for her own, too. Drawing up his strength, his stubbornness, because she was doing this for Svein, proving this, she’d promised…
“And we’re… very grateful to you for that,” she told them, though her voice was brittle, her smile pained. “In fact, we’ve come here today with the goal of gaining more help for Kalfr, and doing whatever we can to resolve this. So —”
Her voice cracked, but Gaelfr’s hand found her back too, gripping sharp against her skin. “So we seek to meet with the leaders of the Bautul,” he said flatly. “And I ken it is long past time when they were bound to return here, is it not?”
Kesst and Rosa exchanged a brief, telling glance, while Gaelfr barked another harsh, furious growl. “So if you truly wish to help us,” he snarled, “you will take us to them. And you will do this now.”