Chapter 6
SIX
Ya?onar holds up a hand. “There is the matter of the Human.”
“I go where she goes,” Maezii says.
“There is greater benefit in accepting a contract with me.”
She shakes her head. “I won’t abandon my aunt.”
“I’m not really your aunt,” I say gently, “and you’re entitled to your own life.”
Maezii rolls her eyes, wrapping her hand around her prayer necklace. “Uh-huh.”
The Icarian watches her, unblinking, then turns to me. “May I be permitted to accompany you? I am, as I said, interested in the outcome of this negotiation and have little of import to occupy my time the next several weeks.”
Maezii and I exchange a look. “I won’t say no to another person on the road to help me protect Maezii.”
“Us,” Rath rumbles.
Ya?onar inclines his head. “I will meet you on the road then.” He spreads his wings and lifts off .
I negotiate the fastest contract possible at the exit table. Rathhur, of course, digs in his heels and goes line item by line item, attempting to create the contract from hells that will keep him bound to me forever at the slightest infraction.
“I’m not adding a mandatory year of service for every time you growl at me,” I say flatly. “I’d be stuck with you forever.”
Rath rubs his chin, eyes crafty. “You must enforce a strict penalty for the slightest disrespect, Ky’a. It is a matter of honor.”
“It’s a matter of you wanting to lock me down for the next seven hundred years.”
He widens his eyes. “Not if I behave.”
“Do you ever behave?”
“I could. With incentive.”
I ignore his suggestive tone and stab my finger at the contract. “This contract is a disincentive.” I bare my teeth at him then turn to the orderly. “Every time he growls at me, I deduct a week from his contract length.”
“Noted,” the orderly drones. They’ve probably seen everything.
Rath’s expression darkens.
By the time we’re done, I’m ready to strangle him and Maezii is grinning. Her contract takes a quarter of the time and is couched to formalize our current apprenticeship.
We leave the exit table and head into the fairgrounds, Rath at my back slightly to the right in the traditional position of Uthilsen subservience to a female relative or wife, Maezii on my left .
“We need to resupply,” I say, “and a hot meal would be good then we can?—”
“Kyona!”
I halt. “Please tell me that isn’t Hatthar.”
“That isn’t Hatthar,” Rath says.
It is Hatthar, shoving aside a hapless Human, flashing his tusks and flexing his massive arms and shoulders. The Human wisely moves off.
“Took long enough,” Hatthar says, striding up to us. He gives me a sly look. “It was a fun chase. Thanks, ankle biter.”
“I think I’ll gut you in your sleep,” I say, without much heat.
“That’s how I know you love me. Lathhan is guarding our seats.”
“You brought two of them.”
Rath squeezes my shoulder. “Let’s go eat.”
We enter one of the larger, sturdier tents set up as a makeshift watering hole and order food. I stare at the food, but I mostly drink. Not water.
How did this happen?
The fifth time I ask myself that, I think I say it out loud because Maezii takes my. . .sixth?. . .drink away and pushes it toward Lathhan. He gives it a distasteful glance and shoves it at Hatthar. Lath’a only drinks water.
“It happened,” my so-called husband purrs in my ear, the caress of his warm breath making my mead-soaked body shudder, “because our deeds always return on us tenfold. You owe me twenty years, and I find I quite like the Aeddannari concept of usury.”
“Interest.”
“All I hear, Ky’a, is that I’m yours by law and you can’t be rid of me.” He bites down on my earlobe. “You started this war. You fought it well. But I will always win.”
I push away from the table. Rath stands immediately and I snarl at him. “I’m going out for a smoke and you are not invited.”
He stares down at me. “I go where you go. This fair is not safe. Full of rough and uncivilized looking people.”
“I’ll go with her,” Maezii says, rising. “We’ve been in worse places.”
I shove my hand at Hatthar, palm up. “I know you have smoking herbs. Give.”
Hatthar scowls. “It’s the good shit.”
“Invoice my husband. ”
“But he’s a kept male now.”
“Give it to her,” Rath says.
Hatthar sighs and digs out his pouch, tossing it to me. “Females are expensive.”
“It’s just a little smoke, you skinflint. No wonder no female’s blooded you.” I stomp towards the back of the tent, Maezii on my heels.
“Ten minutes, Ky’a,” Rath calls after me, an edge in his voice as Hatthar says, “I think her temper’s gotten worse with age. Typical female.”
“It’s like he thinks I’m still twenty-five,” I complain when we’re outside, firing up the rolled joints.
It’s a kind of alley, but we’re not the only people smoking. A Human male slips out the back tent, almost bumping into me, and whistles, walking away. I keep an eye on him for a desultory minute as he meets two more males several tents away, cloaked and huddled in quiet conversation .
“Just two or three puffs for you, Mae’a, this is an Uthilsen backwoods blend.”
She takes one, eyes it, and grins. “Yeah? When do I ever just take two or three puffs?”
“You won’t be able to walk.”
“That’s what Hatthar’s for.” She exhales a cloud of fragrant air, casting her gaze up at the sky. “Or the Icarian. Bet I can get him to fly me.”
“I’m not taking that bet.” On my eighth puff it starts to hit, relaxing me. An Orc male meanders by, slowing to give us a look and I growl. “Move along.”
A Human pokes her head out of the back tent. “We can smell the smoke. There’s outdoor seating a row of tents that way.”
We nod and leave the tent alley, turning the corner she indicated. Sun is beginning to set, the air beginning to cool. There’s rough wood and reclaimed metal benches, and ground seating covered with old tarp tucked into a round bit of cleared forest. We find a bit of unoccupied tarp and plop down, backs against a tree trunk. After the third request to share or sell our smokes, we decide to go a bit deeper in the forest before we have to defend our “no” with fists.
“Does Hattie have a regular supply of this stuff?” Maezii asks.
Hattie. I snort. “Dare you to call him that to his face. It’s probably Fiuthen’s. I think he’s in City trade now. Can you imagine? Trade. He was wearing a wool vest with gold buttons.”
“The world is blowing up. Orcs wearing shirts and pants. Even shoes.”
I agree. “It’s not traditional. My Da never wore a shirt a day in his life. He was a good, modest male. Except for that whole marrying a Human girl blip. Did you know I was a seven month baby?”
“No one’s perfect.” She pats my knee.
“So true.” I brood.
The smoke and mead have taken the edge off my anxiousness and my anger, leaving me languid and ready to consider my situation with a buffer between me and the mental/emotional weight I carry.
Maybe going home with Rath won’t be that bad. Maybe?—
A branch snaps, the kind of rustling that heralds more than one person approaching.
“We should head back,” Maezii says with a sigh. “The barrel scrapers must have followed the smoke.”
I push to my feet, pulling her with me, glancing in the direction her head is turned. The cloaked trio from the alley weaves towards us at a clip a tad too fast to be unhurried.
“Let’s go back.”
It’s been more than ten minutes. The boys will have a hard time following us even with the fragrant smoke because of the density of scents in the fairgrounds—most of them unpleasant.
There's a certain point when if someone approaching doesn’t slow, stop, or use a myriad of body language cues to indicate they mean no harm, you know they mean the opposite.
I shove the smokes inside my vest and whip out my blade the second she throws the charm in her hand. It hits the first male because he wasn’t expecting resistance, and explodes into flame against his chest.
We turn and run.
“Double back,” I snap. Letting them chase us deeper into the forest will make the situation worse, but we can lose them first then retrace our steps.
Weight barrels into my back, taking me to the ground. I jerk my head back, slamming against bone. He swears viciously, grabbing my wrist and pressing until my fingers go numb. He grabs my head and slams my forehead into the ground, once, twice. Pain explodes.
His hand is green-skinned but from his weight and strength I would have known he was an Orc. Why?
Maezii shrieks curses, high-pitched and furious. An earsplitting noise called a siren goes off in the air; another of her charms.
The Orc’s hands are around my throat.
“Hurry up,” another male rasps. “No, pick her up. We’ll finish it somewhere else. They have males with them.”
“What about the Human?”
“We can sell her.”
“Search her for more charms.” A third voice, with a greasy laugh.
Maezii makes a sound I never wanted to hear again from her throat. But I’m dying. Rath tried to train me how to get a male off me from this position, but his advice had mostly consisted of, “Don’t get in that position, cause you’ll be fucked. And if it happens, fight like hell. ”
There’s a whoosh and a crashing through the trees, and screaming that isn’t Maezii’s.
I fight like hell, but I can’t throw his weight off me. His hands tighten around my throat, his knee pressing so hard into my spine I think it might break.
As everything dims, there’s a roar, like blood thundering in my ears seeking air, and my vision goes black.
“Kyona!”
A mouth on mine, forcing my lips open. Hands on my chest, pushing. My lungs burst, chest expanding as my body instinctively sucks in great gulps of oxygen. Familiar arms gather up my limp body and I open my eyes, lashing out. My hands hit his face before my mind catches up, but he doesn't flinch.
Words, a string of words. “. . .not again, Ky’a. I’m weak, I can’t let you go a second time. Wake up, baby, wake up. Don’t make me slit my throat and follow you into death.”
I pry my eyelids open.
“Baby, say something,” Rath says, desperation and rage in his guttural voice. “Kyona, Kyona. Come on, baby.”
“She’s awake, Rathhur,” Lathhan says. “Her breathing changed. Take a breath.”
“Maezii,” I croak, and try to push myself out of his arms.
“The greywing has her.”
The whoosh and the crash.
“Just some bruises,” I hear Hatthar say, his voice thick with the same rage I feel. The same rage in Rathhur’s eyes .
I turn my head, nostrils flaring as I follow the scent of bloody meat to see a body on the ground several feet from me. It’s in pieces, and Hatthar picks up an arm and bashes it against the corpse’s severed head.
“Motherfucker,” he spits. He drops the arm and crouches, searching the pieces.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“Identification.”
All the pieces seem like overkill; typical Uthilsen male behavior. “You were messy, Hath’a.”
He snorts, glancing at Rathhur. “This isn’t my mess.”
“There is one yet alive,” I hear Ya?onar say. His anger is as obvious as theirs, but rather than hot and seething, it’s cold and biting. “I will question him.”
“Orcs don’t break under torture,” Rath says.
Ya?onar chuckles.
“Remind me never to piss that male off,” I murmur.
Rath lowers his forehead to mine. “Hellsdamned, Ky’a. I said ten minutes. Why did you leave the tent?”
“They targeted us. Are they slavers?” He lets me sit up on my own but keeps an arm around me.
“I don’t know. Let the greywing work. Baby, your nose is busted.”
I know. I’ve been ignoring it.
Latthan brings Maezii to me, and they didn’t lie. She’s in much better shape.
“They were going to sell me,” she says. “But I think they wanted Kya dead. Why? Why waste a perfectly good breeding female? ”
The males exchange a look.
Hatthar crouches next to me. “I can push it back into place.”
Rath opens his mouth, then grits his teeth and nods. “Gently.”
“She’s an Orc, Rath. Stop babying her.” But his touch is gentle, the forced expression on his face cheerful. “Did it this time, Ky’a. He’s going to break every line in the contract till you own him for life.”
My jaw clenches when he fixes my nose, but I don’t scream. I only did before in case the boys were close and might hear me.
That’s the story I’m sticking to.
Maezii drops to her knees next to me and grabs my hand. She lets out a string of insults in her Gaithean dialect, Uthilsuven, a sprinkle of Aeddannari, and even a few Icarian words.
“We will have time to correct your pronunciation on the road,” Ya?onar says, approaching. “I have questioned the male.” He glances at Rath. “I did not know politics among the Uthilsen female’s circles were so fraught. This journey will be more interesting than I anticipated.”
Silence.
The boys explode.