8. To Share a Fire
TO SHARE A FIRE
Vrathgar didn’t budge, rigid, from his place against the tree.
“Hakran,” he said. “Our fire is yours, and what provision you can eat, before my brethren return. They’re unlikely to be as eager to share.
” He inclined his head, like he acknowledged some sign I didn’t see. “You’re friends of the Droth?”
The first man sat by our fire, near Vrathgar’s feet, too comfortably. “Aye. Me and Stephan, we fought alongside the Droth at Hammer’s Ridge. Dewan is new to these parts, hired in by the baron.”
Dewan sat heavily across the fire, a mountain of a person with a beard like discarded flax. He didn't smile. The other, Stephan, sat beside him, his shoulders hunched, eyes on the fire.
“I’m Ronnel, by the way.” The first one still smiled, widely. Too much.
“Vrathgar One-Eye’s Son.” He gave a surname I’d never heard before.
“One-Eye’s Son.” The chatty one— Ronnel— cocked his head to one side. “I suppose it’s bad manners to ask what the horde is doing this far south.”
“It is,” Vrathgar said, clipped. “But we fanned out a bit, after the raids on the town near Bonnybrook.”
“So hiding spoils.”
Vrathgar shrugged one shoulder. “Think as you like.”
The man’s eyes strayed over to me. “And I suppose this one is from the spoils as well.”
“No,” said Vrathgar, and I barely saw his jaw tic. “She joined us previously.”
“A camp follower?” His eyebrows rose, like he was assessing me anew. “Pretty luxury, to have a woman around.”
“You can say that, till she places a knife in your ribs.”
Ronnel laughed, too loud, too long. I had the cooking knife in my hand, stirring the soup. He bared his teeth in a grin. “I’ll have to avoid that. You’ll spare me some soup, Miss?”
I kept my voice neutral. “I don’t have enough bowls. Do you have your own?”
“Of course.” He produced one. As I reached to take it he pulled back, just an inch. “So how does a girl like you end up following an orc camp?”
Not a girl, I wanted to say, but I swallowed it, “It’s a living.”
“Oh, I’m sure it is.” He released his bowl to me, and I retreated back. “Dewan, Stephan, give the girl your dishes. We’re eating like orc guests.” While they found their accoutrement he said to Vrathgar, “That’s a nasty cut you have there. That the reason they left you with the girl?”
“Just a scratch.” The line of his shoulders was tense.
“No offense meant, none meant.” He sat back. “So how many strong are your party? I’d hate to take up all this food.”
“Only five more,” Vrathgar lied.
“Five. A good size for a party of stealth. Minus the girl.”
“The Gol Droth seldom need stealth, do we?”
“Fair, fair.” He was smiling.
The other two handed me their bowls. Dewen, the large one, held his too close to his body, so I had to reach. Too close. His eyes fastened on me, hooded.
Every piece of me said these men were dangerous.
“Thank you,” I got out. He said nothing, only watched.
Something brushed my ear, and I dodged back. Ronnel was still smiling, his hand outstretched. “Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.”
Vrathgar’s voice was harsh. “You wear out your welcome, human.”
His smile didn’t slip. “I didn't know the Droth were touchy about such things. Isn’t it common for you to share women?”
“There is nothing in common here to share.”
I moved back to the cauldron, putting the fire between me and their leader. The third one, Stephan, was moving into the trees, maybe to relieve himself. Maybe to grab me from the back.
“Apologies.” This Ronnel should have been afraid. He didn’t look afraid. “I’d hate to overstep, especially with the rest of your party returning. There were…six of them, weren’t there?”
“Do you tire of living? Because I tire of your questions.” Vrathgar snarled.
“Alright. No more questions.” He sat forward, utterly at ease.
Something about him was wrong, off. “One thing I always liked about you Droth is your sense of tradition. Hate rituals lasting centuries? Relatable. Admirable, even.” He was smiling, too wide.
The knife was tight in my hand. “As a piece of that tradition, they told me, every woman they take in, they take the top of her ear. Cut it right off.” Vrathgar tensed as he said, “Funny. Your little friend, she has all her bits on her.”
The world was so bright, over-bright, and everything in me was freezing.
“You think those friends are coming back to camp? The five or the seven of them?” Our enemy grinned, feral. “Because I don’t think the Gol Droth give a rat’s ass what happens to you.”
Vrathgar didn’t wait for them to move. He threw the blanket at the man’s face, the sword in his right hand aimed through as he lunged. It should have been a kill. He’d been so brutally fast back in the cell, but that was before he’d lost so much blood, before these woods had cut so deep.
They brought him down. I heard him cry out as a boot came down on his wrist, watched him reach for the other blade before a knee slammed on his neck. And I…I had a knife in my hand. There were three of them. He was on the ground.
I was my mother’s daughter. I was the one making cowardly, pragmatic choices, over and over until everything worth keeping in my life was bled dry. Perhaps this was always my fate, binding myself to one monster or another, till I sacrificed the last of my humanity on that altar.
When the orc I’d spent the night beside cried out in anguish, when the husband who'd faced beasts and defied his kinfolk to defend me was being crushed into the ground, I didn't strike, didn't scream or beg, didn't move. He looked up at me, from the ground, shouted “Annora, run!”
And I dropped my knife into the pot. “Why would I run?” I said, and my voice sounded like someone dead, like someone who'd already given up on whatever made them alive. “I'm human.” And, as one of them burst out laughing, and horror congealed in my husband’s eyes, “...and we haven’t had the soup yet.”
They were joking with each other, stepping over the ground that was spattered with Vrathgar's blood. One of them had his sword and was looking at the etching on the blade, while the big one was still kneeling on his back, pulled out a knife.
“Don’t kill him yet,” I said, detached. “He wanted my body so much, let him watch.” And men are always ready to believe someone else is like them, that we’re as debauched or as cruel as they are.
I dipped soup into the bowls, and it smelled like the wild onion that was supposed to take the edge off his wounds, and now someone was wrenching his hands behind his back to tie, and I wasn’t going to let myself look at the face I’d kissed last night, at the fresh bruises spreading over the old ones, because I was a fool, a mercenary fool.
The smiling one took a bowl out of my hands.
The one that had tackled him first caught the edge of my sleeve, and rough fingers rubbed into my shoulder, and I thought I could scrub and scrub my skin and never feel clean again.
I held a bowl out to him, like this was nothing, like I did this every day.
“You surprise me, orc-follower. Annora, was it?” The smiling one spoke between bites, the sheen of what was supposed to feed us on his lips. “So I take it you are the spoils of war?”
“My people sold me to solve the orc problem.” The large one with the beard had left Vrathgar and was stepping over, and I held out the third bowl, hoping his hunger was stronger than any other urge.
“I take it from the dearth of supply that your master lied about the numbers.”
“No one is coming,” I said, dull, momentary relief sinking into me as he took the bowl instead of my arm.
“I figured.” The quiet one slurped.
The giant's brows knitted over the untouched food. “Is he really Droth?” he said. “I don’t want trouble.”
“I couldn’t tell,” I said. “But we met Droth, and we ran from them.”
“Shut up and eat, Dewan,” the first one said. “The Droth don’t care about stragglers and runaways. They care about chieftain’s honor, convoluted rules.” He waved towards me. “They’re more likely to be after the blonde than worried about him.”
I wondered if that was true, if whatever I became after this meal would have the shadow of that horde still chasing me. I picked up the knife and stirred.
“If he’s running this way, could be he’s one of the other tribes.” The fast one assessed me. “You said they sold you from one of the towns?”
“Brackshire.” I had no reason for secrets.
“Why would the orcs make a deal like that?”
The smiling one scoffed at him, licked a finger.
“A lot of these towns think the orcs are entranced by women, like they’re fae beasts, isn’t that right?
And what’s easier to pay them, a filly or a reasonable bribe?
” He smirked at me. “Won’t work with the Droth, though.
As I’m sure the bird now understands.” He looked over at the bloody heap that an hour ago had been my husband.
“What about you? Did the magic broad work on you? Are you cured of violence?”
Vrathgar didn’t answer. The fast one frowned, started to stand—
“I think it was working,” I said, in a rush. Because I was a weakling, because I didn’t want to see him hurt. Because I’d destroy myself and everything. “He got gentler. In bed.”
There was a second of silence, before one honked out a guffaw.
My heart was pounding, and I wished I had the words to pray.
They were making jokes and lewd suggestions, and I was denying my gaze to the only man here who felt like he mattered, because I didn’t think I could endure seeing his face.
The smiling one was laughing, looking across the fire at me, and I knew that his faster friend could be next to me in an instant, knew however quick I was with the knife I couldn’t be fast enough.
I had to stay alive. I would not think about the next moment, the next hour.
He was speaking, and I watched the shape of his lips, forced myself to resolve them into words.
“...so what do you say, orc-girl? A fair offer?”
“What?” I whispered.