Epilogue
Men were creeping around the byrgi again.
“So this is the weaver’s place?” a deep voice called out. “Awful big and sturdy for a lone woman, isn’t it? Look at the size of that garden.”
Raye strode toward the door, and cast one more swift glance around at the byrgi’s main room, making sure there were no obvious weapons or other orcish items lying about.
Of course, there were multiple axes and swords mounted on the wall around the door — her own shining sword among them — but those were a last resort.
And instead, over the past few months, they’d worked out a highly effective alternate strategy, full of their combined cleverness and skill.
Raye waited until she heard the boots crunching around the front door, closer and closer — and then she swept the door open with a flourish. Revealing the startled faces of three unfamiliar men, all of them smartly dressed in northern military attire, with swords hanging at their belts.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” Raye asked, raising her brows. “Is there something you need?”
For a beat, the three men stared at her, and then they staggered back in comical unison, the dismay and alarm flashing through their eyes. And Raye had to bite back her smile as she held herself still in the doorway, and allowed them to look their fill.
She was a sight, she knew. Her old shabby dresses had come in very handy, especially after plenty of dirty work in the garden, and this one was now stretched almost to bursting around her pregnant belly.
But even more compelling, she well knew, were the garish welts and pock-marks smattered across her face — and best of all was the small black-and-white skunk currently sniffing for treats around her feet, its fluffy tail raised menacingly toward the door.
“What the hell,” one of the men gasped, staggering a few more steps backwards. “What the fuck is wrong with you? And don’t you realize what you have in your house?”
Raye cast a placid smile down toward Mr. Stinkles, and nodded. “Yes, my new kitten is adorable, isn’t he?” she asked. “I just found him today. The dog hasn’t even met him yet.”
Perfectly on cue, a loud, frenzied barking emanated from the back bedroom’s closed door, prompting the men to take several more panicked steps backwards. “And your face?” one of them demanded. “What is that, the pox?!”
Raye shrugged, gave a dismissive wave of her pockmarked hand. “The doctor said something like that, I think,” she said, as she thoughtfully scratched one with her finger. “He didn’t say it wasn’t fatal, though, so nothing to worry about, I’m sure.”
The men had all begun to look sweaty and pale, one of them scratching uncomfortably at his neck, and Raye gave them another placid smile. “Is there anything else, then?” she inquired blandly. “Would you like to come in for some tea?”
The men exchanged more panicked looks, and the first one — likely their captain, a handsome young fellow with cropped brown curls — cleared his throat, and gripped his hand tightly at his sword hilt.
“We’re just doing some follow-ups,” he said, with creditable steadiness.
“On behalf of the Council. We had sources who claimed there was a hidden orc fortress around these parts.”
Raye bit back her sigh, because despite a deeply irate Sybil still being held in a secure location, and her teams of mercenaries now mostly disbanded, her previous actions had continued to haunt them in her wake.
Namely, she’d apparently told Lord Nash and his men of various locations where she suspected orcs were hiding their secret fortresses, with women like Raye aiding and abetting them.
Of course, it also couldn’t be argued that Raye herself had added to their suspicions, thanks to the way she’d supposedly killed both Sybil and herself back at her cottage.
However, the orcs themselves still hadn’t been publicly connected with Raye’s actions in any way, and in a rather depressing development, Lord Nash hadn’t even bothered trying to retrieve Sybil’s body from Raye’s burnt-out cottage, or those of the mercenaries his Council had hired, either.
Instead, he’d apparently decided to continue his hunt for the byrgis, surely knowing that there was still plenty of political capital left to be gained in the prospect of orcs infiltrating the realm with their secret fortresses.
“Oh, yes, there’s an orc fortress,” Raye announced to the men, making them blink. “It’s right over there.”
She pointed toward the huge, smoking Orc Mountain off to the west, prompting all the men to frown at her, and dart nervous glances over their shoulders toward it.
“I’m sure you could go visit there, instead,” Raye continued blithely.
“I heard those orcs like men, don’t they?
Even love them, if you know what I mean. ”
She was just winding them up, based on how the band’s orcs still always fell all over themselves for Aulis — but she didn’t quite expect the way the handsome captain flinched and stared at her, the blood draining from his face.
While the two men behind him looked typically unsettled, exchanging uneasy glances, and stepping back further from the door.
“Uh, so do you live here alone, then?” one of the other men asked, into his captain’s ongoing stunned silence. “Who’s the… the father?”
He waved awkwardly toward Raye’s jutting belly, and she smiled as she stroked a hand against it. “Oh, my ex,” she said. “He even built us this beautiful house, but then he up and ran off, for good! Said he thought I was either losing my mind, or cursed.”
She let that hang in the air, smiling serenely toward them, before kneeling to pet Mr. Stinkles.
Making the men take more steps backwards, except for the handsome captain, who was still clearly trying to collect himself.
“R-right, then,” he said, with a curt nod, and a speaking glance back toward his rapidly retreating men.
“Well, if we have any further questions, we’ll let you… ”
His voice faded, his eyes sliding to something behind Raye, holding with surprising intensity. And when she followed his gaze backwards, she found — goddess damn it. Othan’s big, distinctive drum, sitting tucked under the bench by the table, where she hadn’t even seen it. Fuck.
“Oh, yes, and did I tell you, I’m musical, too,” Raye said, too quickly. “I found that at a market last month, would you like to hear me —”
But her voice frayed, choked, because — there was Othan himself. Lurching out from the fireplace, and staring stunned and blank toward the doorway. Or rather, toward the handsome captain still standing there within it.
Raye hissed through her teeth toward Othan, shot him a disbelieving what-the-fuck-are-you-doing look — but he didn’t move, or show her any acknowledgement.
And instead, his eyes stayed locked on the man in the door, while the man stared straight back at him, unmoving, his face almost as pale as the white clouds in the sky above him.
“Othan?” the man finally breathed, and Raye gaped toward him, her brows furrowing. Did this man… know Othan? He did, surely? And Othan knew him?
But Othan nodded, fast and jerky, his face deeply flushed.
“Ach,” he whispered, running one hand over his mouth, while his other hand adjusted the — the growing bulge in his trousers, goddess damn it.
And the man’s staring eyes had dropped to that too, his face suddenly swarming with red, his head shaking back and forth.
“N-no,” he hissed, squeezing his eyes shut, stumbling back from the door. “No. I’m — engaged. I —”
He whirled around and rushed away toward the other two men, his back very straight, his neck still splotched with red. And after barking a few clipped orders about their next location, he stalked off through the trees, his hand tightly gripping his sword hilt, the other two men trailing behind him.
At least he hadn’t told the other men about Othan, or spurred them to attack, but once Raye had shut and barred the door again, she whirled to glare at Othan’s face, while the rest of the band’s orcs swarmed up into the room.
“What the hell, brother!” she exclaimed.
“We have a plan! You can’t just barge up here, and start petting the pole in your trousers! ”
But Othan hadn’t betrayed any signs whatsoever of hearing her, his face gone increasingly haggard and wan, and Egil strode up beside him, gave a sympathetic pat to his arm. “Ach, so he is the human scent upon you,” he said. “Is he hunting you, mayhap? Following the call of the bond?”
Othan had already begun to shake his head, but then he blinked and swallowed. “I am sure… he would not,” he replied slowly. “He is… engaged, he said. To be wed.”
“Ach, and mayhap not happy about this, if he is here hunting you,” Egil said cheerfully. “Take heart, brother, and have a sweetcake.”
Othan numbly accepted the sweetcake Egil swiped from the counter, while Kalfr and Gaelfr — who had both paused to listen to this, too — now strode over toward Raye at the door.
Gaelfr eased up close beside her, stroking both hands rapidly against her, as if making sure she was still intact, while Kalfr leaned in to inhale at her throat, and waved behind him for Rurik.
“All good, saeta?” Kalfr asked. “They did not vex you, or threaten you, or aught else?”
Raye shook her head, and only half-noticed as Rurik came over too, and began healing the pockmarks on her face.
They were only superficial lesions, easy for Rurik to both make and heal, but even after a dozen times doing this, Raye knew both Kalfr and Gaelfr still didn’t like it — didn’t like seeing her look wounded, didn’t like her greeting the men alone, didn’t like putting her in such danger.