Chapter 10
Kof
“I don’t even know who you’re talking about,” the human said.
Not surprising. Eli didn’t seem fit to curse anyone. In fact, he could barely keep his loincloth from sliding off.
Through the years, I’d seen my fair share of curses at work.
Taruut specialized in smoking out the Last Breath curses that followed warriors home from battle.
But the human, Eli, didn’t even know Ulka.
What reason would he have to curse her? “Use your head,” I told Grok, as he blew heartily into each palm.
“Would a witch be stuck pouring ale at the feast? Or would he be the one getting served?”
“Who can know the way of witches?” Grok shuffled backward and spat over his shoulder.
“There’s no such thing as witches,” Eli said.
Grok’s eyes went wide. “That’s exactly what a witch would say!”
My patience was wearing thin. “There’s no witch here,” I told the na?ve pup. “Ulka had already dropped her bow before he even came here.”
“Time means nothing to a witch,” Grok muttered.
That should earn him six lashes with the heft of my spear for talking back, but pain has a way of fixing things more firmly into a person’s memory.
And right now, I wanted the boy to forget this ridiculous notion and turn his mind to normal things: combat training, discipline, and playing dice with the other guards. Not jumping at shadows.
Once Grok hurried off, I grabbed the clothes and shoved them into Eli’s hands. And when I did, something slid to the floor with a long, serpentine clatter.
A string of virtue beads.
The colors glinted by torchlight. Some whores only wore one or two colors, but this necklace bore many. White to offer use of his hands, yellow for his mouth, green for his ass…and black to use him rough.
I checked the impulse to hurl the beads into the brazier.
What business of mine was it how this human made his coin?
As Eli shoved into Grok’s outgrown clothes, I was unable to take my eye off those black beads.
Plenty of guards liked to brag about the way the whores whimpered while they fucked them, but I’d never seen the appeal.
Maybe Ulka was right—and as a stripling I’d spent too long stewing in the caves, and now I was softer than an overcooked fish.
The clothes didn’t quite fit Eli. As he cinched the trousers tight, the tunic drooped at the shoulders.
I thought it would at least cover the so-called witch tattoos, but when he moved, the neck gaped open so the edge of an inked star poked out.
And though slaves had beaten the clothing well in the river and laid it to dry in the sun, the faint scent of Grok remained.
Of course, I could put my scent on him. Strong and fresh.
A yellow bead glittered from the piled strand on the floor. I imagined the wet heat of his mouth. And then I sought out a green bead….
Eli saw where I was looking and gave the beads a swift kick. The strand skittered across the floor. “Ignore those—they’re nothing. A cruel joke.”
I didn’t understand. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m no whore.”
Humans have such strange opinions. “It’s your body to use as you see fit. You have no wife to dishonor…do you?”
Eli snorted. “Don’t get me started on the useless institution of marriage.”
Maybe my own opinions were just as strange.
His insistence that he wasn’t a whore only made me want to put my scent on him more.
I took a step forward, and he took a matching step back, butting up hard against the cavern wall.
Beneath the scent of Grok’s clothing, the smell of human fear blossomed—tinged with something else.
With desire.
Intoxicating.
I leaned in and let the musky sweetness play over my palate. I could only imagine how the scent would bloom around us when his release spurted onto his belly and mingled with the shared salt slick of our sweaty efforts….
But then I caught another elusive whiff of something beneath the mix of fear and need. A scent both familiar and foreign.
Something distant and vague tugged at my memory. Something that felt both closed in and expansive, as if I were seeing it through two eyes. The memory hovered there at the edge of my knowing….
Until Grok burst into the chamber and declared, “Ulka is dead!”
***
By the next day, news of the “witch” had spread throughout the caves.
With each retelling, Eli’s supposed powers had grown.
His glance, it was said, could curdle milk, and the touch of his hand was lethal.
The fact that he hadn’t bewitched Ul-Rott at the welcome feast was clearly just a testament of the chieftain’s inner strength.
Never mind that he’d been struggling with a heavy flagon and a drooping sarong throughout the entire meal.
My men were garrisoned in a long, narrow chamber with natural vents in the ceiling to clear away the brazier smoke, and a steady trickle of sulfurous water down the far wall.
Each guard had a chest for his own possessions and a reed mat to shield them from the heat of the floor.
From time to time, I inspected the quarters, always unannounced.
I’d never found anything more concerning than a stash of vision mushrooms Taruut had forbidden the men to eat, saying it wreaked havoc with their coordination.
But that morning, I noticed, some of the guards shifted uncomfortably as they stood at attention.
Grok was so nervous, I could hear him swallow from ten paces away.
I targeted him first. “Open your chest and turn over your mat.”
He was clearly reluctant—but an order was an order. Shoulders slumped, he did as he was told.
The bottom of his mat was covered in charcoal-drawn symbols.
I looked it over carefully. Circle and cross—evil eye ward. Three triangles—strength, fortitude and will. Circle in square—protection. The entire mat was filled, from one side to the other. “This must have taken you all night,” I finally said.
Another loud swallow. “Yes, Captain.”
Did he think I was praising his effort? I most definitely was not. “You weaken yourself and you dishonor your shaman.” I nodded toward the trickle of water. “Scrub it off. All of it. And once you’re done, I’d better not be able to tell which side of the mat you’ve scribbled on.”
Grok ducked his head in submission and hurried off to do as he’d been ordered.
I scanned the rest of the men. “Now. Has anyone else wasted their time on this nonsense?”
The men shifted uncomfortably. In all, while no one else had gone to the same extent as Grok, most of them had scrawled at least one or two symbols on their gear.
I ordered all of their sleeping mats added to Ulka’s pyre. Even those belonging to the few men who’d refrained from any superstitious nonsense. If the punishment itself didn’t prove my point, the fact that their fellow guards had to suffer for their foolish actions would do the job.
When I was a boy, Taruut often told me, “The thing about mysticism, Kof, is that magic is what we say it is. A clever shaman takes credit when his predictions come true. But an even smarter one will simply change his mind when they don’t.”
Once the mats were smoking on the pyre, I headed over to the larders. I wasn’t sure what I hoped to find. But if the venison truly was blighted, there should be some outward sign of it by now.
The chieftain had eyes on the larders now—a smart move, considering the Lost Clan had so many mouths to feed, and no concern as to making our stores last the winter. By the time the bitter snows came, they’d be long gone. Ul-Rott’s guards nodded respectfully as I passed, and I did the same.
Trawg was busy with his grubs, humming to them as he layered fresh leaves into their bed for them to devour. “What is it now?” he called over to me. “More special requests from the caves?”
From our human, was what he meant. Trawg would never openly sneer over the Bearer of the Prophecy. But there had never been any complaint from him back when Taruut was alive. And he was quick to dismiss Quinn’s notions about the sick deer.
No doubt he’d be eager to accuse Eli, too.
“How are the provisions looking?” I asked, as casually as I could manage.
“Same as always. Why, do you think Lost Clan’s scrawny human cursed them?”
I felt a wave of relief wash over me. At least Trawg hadn’t bought into the ridiculous rumors. “Of course not. But with Ulka dead, people will say anything.”
“Bah! Witchcraft, my ass. Most likely, Ulka took too many knocks on the head and it finally caught up with her.” Trawg snorted.
“Everything’s wearing thin these days—people, patience, and ale.
You think those Lost Clan bastards will leave a drop for the rest of us?
They drink like it’s going out of style.
I keep watering it down, pretty soon we’ll find minnows swimming in the barrels. ”
“They are us. If you ration them, you have to ration everyone.”
“I know,” Trawg grumbled. “But I don’t have to like it.”
As I glanced around the larder, I was pleased to see no sign of Ul-Rott’s deer. “What about the venison?”
Trawg flitted his hand like smoke. “Ulka’s children demanded it. An offering for the ancestors.”
I couldn’t have thought of a better way to get rid of the carcass. I felt the tension I carried in my shoulders unclench. But then, tucked away in the corner, I spotted something that made my blood run cold.
There, a pair of fine antlers protruded from a hollowed-out block of salt. “Is that...the head of the chieftain’s stag?”
Trawg looked up, a proud grin on his face. “Damn right it is. The family allowed me to save it for the chieftain. When those freeloaders move on, it will be the centerpiece of the feast.”
My stomach churned. What if Quinn had been right, and the deer was tainted?
Curing the head would only allow its poisons to fester.
Maybe even to the point where they’d be dangerous for an orc.
If anything happened to Ul-Rott, the clan would be in chaos, and Two Swords would break our truce just as fast as they could march across the river.
But at least Eli would be safe, long gone with the rest of the Lost Clan.
Which was somehow no comfort at all.