Chapter 13
GRAT
There was no sleep for me that night. I didn’t even bother going to my house, heading straight to Burul’s instead.
“Aww, there’s my favorite orc! I’ve missed your happy grin, Grat,” Olga cooed when I entered the tavern and plopped my ass on a stool by the bar.
Despite the late hour that was heading into the early morning already, the place was still busy. Every table was fully occupied, with not a single chair to spare, which was fine by me. I had no problems getting drunk on my own at the bar.
“Ale?” Olga asked, reaching for an empty stein.
“Not tonight. I’ll have some of that killer stuff Burul distills from potato skins.” I tipped my chin at the dusty demijohn in the corner with a cloudy spirit inside.
Olga tilted her head, squinting at me sympathetically. “That bad, huh? Lady troubles?”
“More like ‘princess troubles,’” rushed through my head, but I said nothing out loud.
Olga hauled the demijohn out of the corner and filled a thick, six-faceted glass from it.
“Here you go, honey.” She shoved the glass my way.
The concerned note in her voice scraped against my nerves. I didn’t need her pity, or anyone’s pity for that matter. I was just fine.
I tipped the glass, sending the cursed liquid down my throat, but could only stand taking one gulping swallow at a time.
“Argh,” I grunted with a shudder. “I forgot how strong this shit is.”
“Here, have a pickle.” Olga sent along the counter a saucer with a chunky, juicy pickle on it. “It’s the best for chasing it down.”
I bit into the pickle. The burn of alcohol seared through all my senses, including the heartache. But it hardly made me feel better.
Chewing on the pickle, I stared blankly at Olga, who was filling eight steins with ale from a barrel. Her two long, dark-green braids were tied with two mismatched ribbons, each of which reminded me of the one I gave to Khala.
“Nice ribbons,” I croaked, swallowing the sour pickle.
“You like them?” Olga beamed, twirling the end of one between her fingers.
“Is either of them a courting present?” I asked.
She giggled. “Both are.”
“And who’s going to be the lucky guy?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She batted her eyelashes. “We’ll see which one works harder to win my heart.”
Just a few hours ago, I thought I’d won a girl’s heart too. And now, my own heart lay in pieces.
Fuck.
I reached for my glass again.
“Are you celebrating too?” Agor appeared from behind me and slid onto the bar stool next to me.
“What are you doing here?” I barked at him.
So much for my plan to get drunk alone.
“The same thing you are. Getting a drink.” He frowned at my glass. “Maybe not the shit you’re drinking, though.”
I hugged my glass with my hand defensively. It was a big glass, and I’d only managed to take a couple of swallows from it. With any luck, by the time I reached its bottom, I’d blissfully pass out under the bar.
Agor nodded to Olga in greeting, and she slid a stein of ale his way, then took the other seven steins over to the tables.
I glanced behind Agor’s wide back, expecting to see Becca with him. It was weird to see one of them without the other.
“Shouldn’t you be chained to the bed by your wife at this hour?” I snapped.
Apparently, Agor and Becca had peculiar love-making preferences. He’d bragged to me about their “incredible and fantastic” sex life over a stein of ale once, thankfully, without getting into too many details.
“We’re going dancing tonight,” Agor explained. “Becca went home to get changed. You know her, she wears practical clothes during the day, but likes dressing in skirts and ribbons for a party.”
“Isn’t it too late for a party? And what are you celebrating anyway?”
“That the fucking duke’s army is finally leaving. People want to celebrate with bonfires and dance. You should come too.”
Normally, I’d never say no to a party. I would never question the reasons for having one, either. In fact, I’d be the one out there right now, piling up the biggest fire pyre ever, then dancing my feet off until sunrise.
No wonder Agor was staring at my gloomy face with his eyebrows raised in surprise, clearly expecting an explanation of my miserable mood.
Except that I didn’t feel like explaining anything.
I didn’t even feel like talking to anyone.
All I felt like doing right now was nursing my glass of poison and wallowing in my misery.
Burul took place behind the counter while his sister served the tables.
“Hey, Grat! What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I live in the keep, don’t I?” I snapped back, twisting my glass on the table.
“Right, but I thought you were at the cabin, hunting,” he said, good-naturedly. “Don’t you have a bet to win?”
Wasn’t it only a few weeks ago when winning that stupid bet was my main concern? Now, all I could think about was Khala. She was the one at the cabin while her beloved husband had been looking for her all over the Wetlands…
Things finally started moving in my brain. Logic and reason made their way out of the fog of heartache. And with that, questions emerged.
Why did Khala lie to me about being a widow?
If she really got abducted and wished to reunite with the duke, all she had to do was tell me that, and I would’ve taken her to him the very first day we met.
I offered to help her find her tribe from the very beginning.
It wouldn’t be difficult for me to locate the duke’s army that had been stomping all over our lands for weeks now.
But she didn’t say that. In fact, she had made it very clear that she didn’t want the humans to find her.
Maybe she thought those were her abductors searching for her, not her husband?
“Why are the humans leaving?” I asked Agor, ignoring Burul’s perplexed stare.
Agor shrugged. “Who cares why as long as they are? They haven’t done any harm. But who likes having an entire army camping literally on our doorsteps?”
“Didn’t the duke just beg us to find his…wife?” The word ‘wife’ had stuck in my throat, and I had to force it out. “Does he not want to find her anymore?”
Agor took a big drink of his ale. “I don’t really give a fuck what the duke wants. I have our orcs to worry about. He can deal with his own problems. He already left with his personal guards. The rest of his army is packing up too.”
That didn’t make sense. Where was the duke going in such a hurry? I had no answer to that question. But an uneasy feeling settled over me.
I had to see Khala, and the sooner the better.
“I should get back to the cabin.” I got up, leaving my barely touched glass on the counter.
Burul took the glass, looking unsure about what to do with it.
“Well, your ale will get there before you do,” he said.
“What do you mean? What ale?”
“The ale that you ordered. I sent Pip with the barrel more than an hour ago. That gives him a good head start. Hopefully the ale is still cold when you get to the cabin.”
“What ale?” I repeated, dumbfounded. “I didn’t order any.”
Pip had delivered ale and other things to my cabin several times over the years when Agor and I had stayed there. But not this year.
Burul scratched the back of his head. “Well, Tarod said you did.”
“Why would he say that?”
“He said a man from the settlement told him. He paid well too, for the ale and the delivery.”
Dread slithered into my chest, spreading through my limbs in cold rivulets.
“A human man?” I asked.
Burul shrugged. “That’s what Tarod said.”
“But Tarod doesn’t know many humans from the settlement,” Agor pointed out, rising to his feet.
Tarod was a quiet, reclusive orc who worked on our fields and rarely if ever went to the human settlement. He wouldn’t know one human from another, especially if one of the duke’s people changed his fancy armor for the plain clothes of a villager.
“Fuck!” I rushed out of the door, grabbing my mace and sword from the hooks by the threshold.
“Where are you going?” Agor caught up with me outside.
“Back to the cabin.”
“Why?”
I pivoted to face him. “Because the fucking duke can now easily follow Pip all the way to my cabin. And Khala is there. Alone.”
“Who’s Khala?” He stared at me as if I lost my mind, and maybe I did. But I had no time to worry about that now.
“Khala is the name of the woman I love with whole my fucking heart,” I blurted.
Agor folded his arms over his chest. “And why am I hearing about her only now?”
“Because she didn’t want me to tell anyone.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s the princess that the duke is looking for. And she fiercely doesn’t want to be found. But if the duke is tracking Pip, who’s on his way to my cabin right now, with that fucking ale I never ordered, then he’ll find her before I get there. Fuuuuuck!” I gripped my head in terror.
What if Khala was in danger?
And I left her in the cabin all alone.
“I have to go.” I sped up toward the gate of the keep.
“But you can’t fight the duke’s entire army on your own.” Agor jogged alongside me.
“I will if I have to.”
“No. I’ll get Becca and the others,” he said. “They will all be by the main bonfire right now anyway. We’ll catch up with you.”
I nodded, not slowing down even for a second.
I still had more questions than answers, but if Khala was in danger, I had to be there for her.
I didn’t take a single break on my way back to the cabin, walking all through the remaining night and the following morning. And all this way, my thoughts chased me.
Without talking to Khala, I feared I wouldn’t know the entire truth. But the truth wasn’t my priority at the moment. I just wanted Khala to be safe.
I knew she was on the run. I knew she was scared.
I didn’t know the entire situation with her husband, but I knew Khala, and I knew that things between us were real.
Her body never lied when I touched her. Her smiles were real when I hugged her, and so was her happiness when she gave me her enthusiastic permission to court her.
I didn’t care what the duke called her. She wasn’t his bride or his wife. She was mine, and she wanted to be with me, not him.