Chapter 11 #2
It wasn’t easy to travel across the Wetlands on horseback. It must’ve been challenging to bring this huge caravan with horses and wagons all the way to the keep.
These must be the humans that Agor told me about on my last visit. The army from the Avilet Kingdom that came to arrest Khala. If so, they’d better get the fuck out of here soon.
Walking over to the camp, I spotted a group of orcs in front of a large round tent with the same crest on the flag over it like the one on the spear by the gate.
“Oh hi, Grat!” The voice made me jump.
An orc walked to me from around the closest tent.
“Prug,” I exhaled in relief and waved him over. “What’s going on?”
He shrugged. “I went to take a piss.”
“That’s not what I mean,” I growled in frustration. “What are these humans doing here? And why is Agor talking to them?” I gestured at our High Chief standing with the group of orcs by the big round tent.
“Oh, I forgot you were gone for a while.” Prug scratched the back of his head. “They came yesterday, put up their tents, and said they’re looking for someone or something? I don’t really know.”
“What’s Agor doing, talking to them?” I asked with a snarl.
Agor turned around, probably looking for Prug. He spotted us both and waved.
“Grat!” He gestured for me to come closer.
Prug gestured in Agor’s direction. “I guess you can go and ask him yourself.”
I noticed that Becca wasn’t with Agor this time. A sure sign that our Head Chief didn’t trust these humans enough to bring her along.
“You’re just in time.” Agor greeted me with a handshake and a slap on my shoulder when I approached the group of orcs and humans.
“In time for what?” I wondered, giving the humans a closer look.
They all looked like warriors, but of a finer kind. They had weapons strapped to their belts, helmets perched on their heads, and armor covering their chests. But all their attire was neat and shiny, with lots of unnecessary details and useless decorations.
“Who is this?” a human man asked.
He was tall, with short dark hair that curled above his ears in neat waves that I suspected had been carefully arranged by his barber just that morning.
Agor rested his hand on my shoulder and introduced me proudly, “This is Grat, my second-in-command. He’s a fierce and skilled warrior, who takes part in all important decisions at the keep. And this is the, um…earl?” Agor squinted at the dark-haired human uncertainly.
“Duke,” the man corrected with a tight smile.
“Right. The duke is the Head Chief—”
“Commander,” the man corrected Agor again.
The pretty blue color of his clothes would look great on Khala, I thought. It matched her eyes perfectly. This man’s eyes were slightly paler than hers and more gray than blue.
“The commander of this lot.” Agor swept the camp with his arm.
“Hi there.” I tipped my chin in the duke’s direction.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Grat.” The duke appeared trying hard not to wince when saying my name. “I beg your pardon, but I don’t know your rank or title.”
“No title.” I snorted a laugh. “Just Grat.”
I didn’t care if my name didn’t sound elegant enough to the duke’s delicate ears.
Bog orcs had no fancy titles like humans often gave themselves.
Our ranks came with a job, and they were earned, not given or born into.
Agor had to fight and win the Mace of the Head Chief, and Becca had to compete for the rank of one of our generals too.
“I didn’t know you were back from your hunting cabin,” Agor said. “When did you return?”
“Just now.” I shrugged the heavy basket with meat from my shoulders. “Can someone take this to the keep?”
Agor gestured to one of our orcs, sending him to the keep with my basket, then turned to me again.
“The duke here is looking for his woman,” Agor said.
His woman? Was that how he called Khala? Or was it someone else they were looking here for?
“May the gods help him,” I muttered gruffly.
“Apparently, the gods haven’t been particularly helpful,” Agor smirked. “The duke is asking for our help to track her.”
Was he now?
I rolled back my shoulders, taking a wider stance. “If the woman ran away, maybe she doesn’t want to be tracked.”
The duke arched a slim black eyebrow. “I never said she ran away.”
Fuck. True, he didn’t. A stupid slip-up on my part.
“How did you lose her then?” I asked.
He sighed, a mournful expression settling over his face.
“We were attacked and got separated. She was abducted by our attackers. But when I and my people caught up and ambushed them, she was no longer with them. My brave, beautiful bride defended herself by killing one of her abductors and running away.”
Killing. The asshole died after all. But that wasn’t the word that disturbed me.
“Your bride?” I repeated, wishing with all my heart that I misheard him.
“My wife, to be precise,” he corrected. “The noble Princess Khala of Avilet Kingdom, the second in line to the royal throne as King Belin’s niece, is my lawfully wedded wife.
We were on our way to my palace after our wedding, looking forward to our new life together, when the attack happened and I lost her.
I’m praying to all the gods of Helfallow that she is well and alive and that I will find her soon. ”
A princess?
A fucking princess!
Blood rushed from my extremities, leaving my body cold and my brain on fire.
What did it all mean?
Khala said she ran away. She confessed she might’ve killed a man who attacked her. But she said that her husband was long dead. Yet there he was, safe and sound, and very much alive.
“Did you happen to see her or hear of her in your travels, noble Grat?” the duke inquired somberly. “It breaks my heart to think she may be lost in the woods somewhere hungry, cold, and alone.”
…or naked and moaning in my bathtub, with her nipple trapped between my teeth and my finger pumping her hot, willing pussy.
Fuck. This couldn’t be true.
“Please, can you help me find my beloved?” the duke implored.
Bile rose to my throat, making me sick.
Prug shoved a hand in my shoulder. “Hey, Grat, did you actually meet a girl in the woods? Who did you buy a whole bunch of dainty little dresses for at the market last week?”
Fucking Prug and his big mouth.
The duke perked up, gazing at me with hope.
Agor settled his stare on me but kept quiet, waiting for my reply.
I sucked at lying. I hated it. But I figured I had to talk to Khala first, before spilling her secret to this “husband” of hers.
I cleared my throat. “I bought them for an orc woman from the keep in the Cranberry Marsh. She was a lot of fun on her last visit here, and I’m seeing her again next week.”
The clothes I bought for Khala’s petite frame wouldn’t fit an orc woman. Thankfully, Prug had enough brains to shut up and not question it.
The duke released a breath in disappointment. “Well, I’ll keep searching for my princess for as long as it takes. My heart’s deepest desire is to be reunited with her because this world is not worth living for me without her.”
“Does she love you?” I blurted out.
The question was out of place, I fully realized that. Prug’s jaw fell open and even Agor stared at me like I’d just swallowed a life frog on a dare. But I had to know the answer.
“She does. Princess Khala loves me passionately,” the duke said confidently. “We fell in love before we even became adults, and our love has only grown since. Nothing and no one can keep us apart. I'd do anything to get her back.”
I was no expert on male attractiveness, but the duke seemed to be everything a human woman and a princess would want in a man. He had the good looks and the manners that the fine ladies of high standing appreciated, I imagined, especially when compared to a bog orc…
My left eye twitched. My muscles cramped, and my chest felt sore.
“Well…” I rubbed my neck. “Can’t be of any assistance here. Lots of luck, Lord… or Duke, or whatever…”
I turned around and left, leaving Agor to sort out all the diplomatic stuff. As the Head Chief of all bog orcs, it was his job, and he was better at it than I could ever be. Especially now, when I could barely put two words together with my mind reeling from all these new discoveries.
Khala was a princess.
My free-spirited wild thing whom I thought I found homeless and friendless—the woman I’d grown to think of as my own—was a fucking princess with a beloved husband and probably with some fancy crown to wear and a cushy throne to sit on in her kingdom.
And what could I offer her instead? A barrel bathtub over a stove and a pile of blood sausages for dinner.
I kicked a spider rat that scurried across my path along the wall of the keep. It squeaked and splashed into a puddle in the ditch, its tails lashing in the air. Unable to face anyone, I wandered aimlessly in the shadows by the walls outside of the keep.
Khala lied to me about her husband’s death. What else could she have lied about? Everything I knew about her could be a lie.
Yet I couldn’t summon any anger toward her. I wished I could just remove Khala out of my thoughts and from my heart. But she had made it so deep under my skin by now that I feared getting her out would break my fucking heart.
My chest ached. My vision turned blurry as my eyes pricked behind my eyelids.
What the fuck was that? Tears?
I was not going to cry like some love lost puppy.
Yet I feared that was exactly how I would spend the rest of this fucking night if I went to my house and stayed there alone.
It must’ve been way past midnight when I finally entered the keep. Instead of going home, however, I headed straight to Burul’s tavern. Alcohol never solved anything. But maybe it could give me a few hours of oblivion and a bit of reprieve from the agony of my heart breaking into pieces.