Chapter 42 #3
A feast? Raye glanced over toward the cookstove, to where Grum was surrounded by various steaming dishes, his bearded face flushed a deep red.
And on the counter behind him, there were several large barrels, too, and Egil was pouring out frothing mugs of ale.
As if this truly was a feast, and beside her, Kalfr didn’t look at all surprised by this, did he?
“Ach, we wished to celebrate together, and honour our good band,” Kalfr replied, loud enough that his voice carried over the hubbub. “And we have our battle-captain to thank for granting us such gifts.”
His grin toward Gaelfr was quick and stunning, and Gaelfr’s grin back was even broader, lighting up his face. “It is our gift to us all, together,” he said back, his deep voice also ringing throughout the room. “Now let us feast and be merry, and honour our goddess this night!”
The orcs’ cheers and stomps rang through the room, and Raye soon found herself thoroughly caught up in the evening’s festivities.
The ale was tangy and thick, and Grum’s cooking turned out to be even better than Kalfr had promised — braised herbed rabbit, tender salted ham, stuffed mushrooms, fermented cabbage, roasted beets, and some kind of nut bread.
And though several of the dishes were entirely new to Raye, it was lovely to sample them together with Kalfr and Gaelfr and Svein, and to see the alternating confusion and delight flash across Svein’s eyes as he chewed.
During the meal, Kalfr also went around the table, asking each of the band’s orcs to share updates on their day’s activities.
It turned out that Rurik and Julian had finished setting up the sickroom, while Soren and William had already isolated several promising locations for an underground well, and a new exit, too.
And Eyolf and Iyolf had begun to work with Grum on the food harvesting and storage plans, and apparently, late that afternoon in the garden, Iyolf had made a new friend — a small, smelly skunk.
“A skunk?!” Svein exclaimed, with mingled glee and horror. “And he didn’t spray you?”
Iyolf blinked and curled his lip, as though even the idea was absurd, while Eyolf beamed proudly toward him.
“My ástvinur has always well understood animals, have you not, Iyolf?” he said.
“This is why he has never liked hunting, and much prefers gardening. So when Kalfr offered this place to us here, and promised us no hunting, and tasty vegetables to eat at every meal, we could not refuse this, ach?”
He grinned toward Kalfr, and only then did Raye notice that both Eyolf and Iyolf’s plates were lacking any of Grum’s delicious meat dishes whatsoever.
Which seemed an unusual choice for a pair of orcs, but Kalfr smiled back with distinct fondness in his eyes, and he gave a companionable clasp to Iyolf’s shoulder.
“We are most glad you both came to us,” he said.
“Your gift is surely from the goddess, brother, and we all ought to honour this.”
Iyolf’s mouth softened into something more like a smile than Raye had seen from him yet, while Eyolf shot Kalfr a warm, grateful look.
And watching them, Raye’s heartbeat skipped with more of that dangerous hope, that longing.
Kalfr really was good at this. He was a clever, thoughtful, generous leader, who’d clearly earned the trust of all these orcs.
And she wanted to keep ignoring those whispers of doubt.
She wanted to keep learning to trust him, too.
So she stayed close by Kalfr’s side as the evening progressed, talking and laughing with him and Gaelfr and Svein and the band.
And once night had fully fallen, and Othan had brought out his rounded drum, Raye settled on the sofa to listen, tucked between Kalfr and Gaelfr, with an increasingly sleepy Svein curled up on her lap.
“What would you have me play?” Othan asked Kalfr in his deep pleasing voice, as he adjusted the drum’s skin, and smoothed his big hand over it. “A Bautul war-march, mayhap?”
Beside Raye, Kalfr smiled back, and shook his head. “No, play whatever you please, Othan,” he said. “Though” — his eyes flicked across the room — “if Fengr might wish to dance for us, this would be most welcome, also.”
Raye had noticed that Fengr had hidden himself away underground for most of the day, and even now was still keeping his distance, hovering sullenly at the gathering’s edges, and nursing his mug of ale.
He certainly hadn’t betrayed any hint whatsoever that he would welcome being asked to perform, so Raye was surprised to see his head snapping up, as a glint of baleful satisfaction flared in his eyes.
“You are sure you wish me to dance for you, voreur?” he coolly asked. “Mayhap we ought to send away the youngling first?”
He darted a meaningful look toward Svein on Raye’s lap, enough that she stiffened and frowned back — what kind of dance was Fengr suggesting, exactly?
But again, Kalfr shook his head, and gave Fengr an encouraging smile.
“I told you, none of us shall expect that sort of dance from you,” he said, with a warning glance toward a sulky-looking Skirvir.
“We shall welcome whatever most pleases you to share with us. For we only wish to honour your gifts, and your great skill.”
Raye was feeling fully lost now, but after a poisonous glance of his own toward Skirvir, Fengr inclined his head, plucked something out of the pack he’d been holding, and stalked forward into the centre of the room.
And when he curtly gestured at Othan, flicking his fingers in an indication of the tempo he wanted, Othan began striking his hands against his drum, thudding a bright, steady beat throughout the hushed room.
And then — Fengr twisted, and leapt. His lean body spun fully in midair, his feet flying over his head, while the entire room gasped — but then he landed again, upright on his feet.
While something else shot up into the air — no, three things, three flashing steel bars, each about as long as his forearm.
But before they could fall to the floor, he caught them all, one by one, amidst another fluid leap, and hurled them up again.
On Raye’s lap, Svein had bolted wide wake, staring with his mouth open, and the rest of the room had gone utterly silent, too.
All of them watching, rapt and disbelieving, as Fengr kept leaping and flipping, throwing the bars up into the air, higher and higher.
Until Raye could scarcely see them, whirling with flashes of silver up in the byrgi’s rafters, but Fengr caught them every single time, moving with impossible grace and ease.
“How’s he doing that?” Svein asked, in a far-too-loud whisper that still rang out over Othan’s steady drumbeat. “Is it magic, Mama?”
A few of the orcs chuckled, and Raye couldn’t help a choked laugh, too. “It must be,” she whispered back. “I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s incredible, isn’t he?”
Perhaps she imagined it, but Fengr’s eyes flicked toward her as he caught his bars with a flourish, hurled them up again, and kicked off into one more impossible leap.
His body twisting and turning in the air again and again, so fast Raye could scarcely follow — until finally, he landed in a deep, sweeping crouch, his arms outstretched, his bare chest heaving with his breaths.
For an instant, the room was utterly silent — Othan’s hands were hovering over his drum, waiting — until beside Raye, Kalfr let out a loud, shrill whistle, and stomped his feet.
Gaelfr joined him next, hollering a deep war cry, as Othan’s hands began rapidly pattering against his drum.
Soon the rest of the room joined in too, Raye and Svein included, clapping and cheering while Fengr blinked back toward them, his body very straight, his chin held high.
“Thank you, Fengr,” Kalfr said, in a carrying voice, once the noise had subsided again. “And you also, Othan. Your gifts have brought great joy to us all this night.”
Fengr stiffly nodded, and then swiped up his pack and strode out, his bars still clenched tightly in his hand. And though the rest of the orcs’ voices slowly began rising again, Raye still felt too stunned to speak.
“So — was Fengr not dancing like that, before?” she finally asked Kalfr. “Why in the gods’ name not? That was spectacular.”
Kalfr betrayed a wince, and glanced down to where Svein had gone slack against Raye again, his eyes closed.
“During the war,” Kalfr carefully replied.
“Whenever orcs in our war-bands did not fight, they were expected to earn their keep in… other ways. Our drummers and dancers most of all. So they oft abandoned their old gifts, to instead offer what the bands’ most powerful warriors wished for from them.
Some of them” — he winced again — “were even captured by humans, and bound to this with them, also.”
The horror wrenched through Raye’s gut, and her thoughts flashed back to that morning, to when Fengr had said he had little care for most humans, and most orcs, too.
“So you… you gave Fengr a new kind of job, in your band,” she said slowly.
“A different way to still be a dancer. The way it was meant to be.”
Kalfr nodded, a flicker of relief passing through his eyes, while across from them, Skirvir leaned forward, his brow deeply furrowed. “You mean to say this so-called dancer will not offer this at all, then?” he demanded. “Not even to our greatest warriors after each battle, as he ought?”
Kalfr and Gaelfr both frowned at once, Gaelfr making what appeared to be a rude gesture toward Skirvir, and Raye was grateful that Svein now seemed fully asleep, his head lolling on her shoulder.
“I just said, no, Fengr will not offer this,” Kalfr told Skirvir, his voice hard and clipped.
“And if you expect this of him, or any other here, you can take your blade elsewhere.”
Skirvir at least had the decency to look somewhat chastened, and he curtly nodded before rising to his feet and stalking off toward the barrel of ale.
And after another long look toward him, Kalfr turned toward Raye, his eyes softening at the sight of Svein’s sleeping body sprawled against hers.
“Ach, our son ought to be in bed,” he murmured.
“I will put him in the back room, mayhap.”
Raye gratefully smiled back, and helped to wrangle Svein’s heavy weight up into Kalfr’s arms. And as Kalfr strode away with Svein, Raye found herself sinking against Gaelfr’s solid body beside her on the sofa.
“You were right,” she murmured toward him. “He’s really, really good at this.”
Gaelfr nodded, and his heavy arm settled closer around her shoulder. “Ach, he is,” he said firmly. “And together, we will keep helping him in this, and guide him back to who he is. We will grant him hope, and peace.”
There wasn’t a hint of a question in it this time, and Raye took a breath, and nodded.
Right. Yes. That was what she’d agreed to, wasn’t it?
And again, it was too easy to shove down the darkness, the doubts, and focus on the hope, and the truth of this moment.
And on the sight of Kalfr, who’d come out of the back room again, closing the door tightly behind him.
And when he paused to chat to a cluster of orcs, tipping his head back as he laughed at something Egil had said, the room stilled around Raye, stuttering with that hope, that longing.
Gods, he looked so beautiful, so much like he’d used to be — and she desperately wanted to trust him, wanted to believe the goddess was just answering all her prayers…
“And you remember how you now owe him,” Gaelfr murmured, close and hot in her ear. “How you owe both of us.”
And instead of the dread and darkness this time, Raye felt only more thunderous longing, and something like relief.
Perhaps because Gaelfr was barging in again, hurling away all her doubt and fear, flooding her instead with his certainty, his strength.
And with his touch, too, his hand now smoothly reaching for the belt of her dress, and drawing it apart.
Revealing the lacy red chemise beneath, showing it off for all these orcs, and she should be appalled by that, she should…
But instead, she only looked at Kalfr. At her mate. At how his eyes met hers across the room, how his nostrils flared, his tongue brushing his lips. And that wasn’t hatred in his eyes, was it? No. It was hunger. Pleasure. Power.
Gaelfr’s hand had begun to pull out Raye’s braid, too, releasing her curls in a messy halo around her head, and oh, Kalfr liked that too.
He even cut off Skirvir’s rapid speaking with a curt wave of his hand, his eyes glittering on Raye — and then he strode over toward her and Gaelfr on the sofa, his hand adjusting his trousers.
Saying, he wanted this. He wanted her. And perhaps he wanted her here, now, in this crowded room, before all his band.
And when he came to a halt before her, looking down at her with those glittering eyes, Raye was certain of it. Because again, this was power. This might be penance again, punishment, proving it to him…
But maybe… maybe it was something else, too. Something they’d both begun to learn last night, and something they’d kept learning together, all this day.
“Will you seek to meet me in this, Raye?” Kalfr murmured, as his hand found her face, and tilted up her chin toward him. “Learn this, with me? Trust me?”
The hunger and craving surged through Raye’s belly, through her shocked blinking eyes. He wanted her to meet him, in this. Learn this with him. Trust him. And he was asking her, warning her what he wanted, giving her a chance to refuse. And maybe giving her a chance to prove this, too.
“Y-yes,” Raye whispered. “I will.”
And oh, the way Kalfr smiled at her, the way his hand caressed her face. Wanting her, wanting this, and…
“Then kneel for us,” he whispered. “And beg.”