14. Drazha
DRAZHA
Ifell off the bed and scrambled up. Thin sunlight pierced through the curtain. A new voice snarled a stream of invectives, loud, and I pushed through the fabric to the center of the house.
Everyone stopped to look up, Khal, Rowena, a new orc woman with a fierce, angular face who glared like I was an insect who’d crawled onto her plate, Tyralk, rubbing his eyes beside the wide open door. And Vrathgar.
This was the first time he’d seen me since he’d collapsed, and my gaze glued to him where he still reclined by the fire, his expression flat, careful. Closed.
“So this is what he brings into my enclave?” The newcomer switched to the common tongue, her voice still guttural, harsh. “A newborn fawn?”
“She’s sturdier than she looks,” Vrathgar drawled. His eyes were still shuttered.
“She looks like you butchered an animal on top of her. Do you know what the people will say?”
“Thank you for your intense worry for my welfare after these injuries. I will live, honored matron—"
She spat. She actually spat onto the floor. “I know you will live. You would not do me the favor of dying. Have you thought of what they’ll say?”
“That I’m my father? Is that what you want me to answer you?”
Her nostrils flared. He stared back, flat. He had propped himself up on one elbow, and I was still by the curtain, standing like a frozen deer, this woman with a blade on her staff standing between Vrathgar and me.
“You know,” he said, casual, “if you took a moment, you might notice my face is decorated a bit more than hers. Are you going to accuse my wife of battering me, or is that only my predilection, honored death-dealer?”
“That thing couldn’t hurt you.” She made a sound of disgust in her throat. “I knew you were feckless. I didn’t take you for one who sought out weak prey.”
“The lady sought me.”
“You are lucky,” she snarled. “You are lucky I claimed the right to come here. Verucht wanted to bind you first and ask the questions later. Yanasz would have happily dragged you to account in the square before the sunrise, but no, not in my shield-brother’s house, not with my son and his wife implicated, no, I sully myself speaking to you, and what do you have to say?
” That blade touched his throat, and the sorceress squeaked in horror. “Rootless one, you go too far.”
His eyes held that same, flat challenge. “What does it matter what I say? You’ve condemned me already.”
The knives were hanging above our heads with the pots. The hook jingled as I wrenched one down, and Rowena cried out in horror again. “Lower your blade,” I said. I held the knife to the spear-wielder’s back. My voice was unsteady. My hand was not. Vrathgar’s eyes widened.
The woman turned her head the barest amount. “So the fawn has teeth.”
Vrathgar spoke. “Annora, don’t—"
The spear’s butt drove into my gut. She had my arm, twisted, the knife clattering against the floor before she slammed my face down next to it. I saw stars. A knee pressed into my back. “At least this one has grist to her.”
“Mother, you’ve done enough,” the quiet one rumbled. Mother?
She twisted my arm farther, and I gasped. A little farther and something would break.
“She put a blade to my back. Why should I be lenient?”
“She’s a foreigner to this place, and you threatened her husband. Wouldn’t you do the same, for Da?”
“No.” Another sound of disgust. “If someone endangered your father, I wouldn’t ‘threaten’ like a child. I would kill.” She picked up the knife in front of my face, and my heart beat to drown out the world—
“Enough, Drazha,” Vrathgar’s voice commanded, cold with a fury it didn’t have before. “You know she’s not the one you care about.”
Slowly, the orcess released me. I fell gasping. Her voice sliced. “Educate your wife, boy, since you brought her here. It’ll be your neck if she sins.” Some of the venom seemed gone out of her.
I gained my feet, scrambled over to where Vrathgar stood, careful, one hand against the fireplace stone.
“Not a kidnapped child, I take it,” the orc-ess snarked.
There was no humor in Vrathgar’s face. “She kidnapped me.”
“Do you have any proof of that?”
“What proof could I have, Drazha? Do they give writs of man-stealing?” He paused. “There was one of the Droth taken with me, Balnoc. He could vouch that we were captured, and to her presence.”
“I’ll send word. We might need him.”
“Don’t I have a voice?” I’d spoken, and her eyes appraised me anew. I pressed, “If they are worried of a crime against me, I should be witness enough. Tell them my people did the thing.”
“It’s not quite that simple.” Vrathgar was staring past me, eyes still fixed on the woman with the spear.
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Drazha snorted at that, but Vrathgar just shook his head, slightly. “The Drashik are more worried about the keeping of their own traditions than about the actual people affected. Isn’t that right, Drazha?”
Her eyes were cold. “We keep the ways, and with this defend our own from outside threats. Any evils are necessary.”
He wasn’t smiling, quipped “May I be considered necessary? Since those threats ripped me open three ways already.”
“You seem to be standing just fine.”
He frowned.
“I will see that it’s spread about the fires that humans captured the rootless one.
If you want to be seen as one of us and not a stealer of innocents, you will get out of this place where you’re hiding like a rat, and be seen among the people.
You will take this little fool to your own house and your own blood.
And when the time comes to stand before the stones,” she glared, “you will not embarrass my son.”
Vrathgar stared back. “Thank you for your understanding.”
She stalked towards the door, then paused. “What news of the Droth?” She waited, tension in the lines of her neck.
Vrathgar spoke. “They still value strength of arm, and they still make enemies wherever they tread. But the magisters bribe them towards the east.”
“Then they lie to you. The Droth will not take the wizards’ yoke.”
“They do not offer them a concord. They offer revenge on the Barrahal. The eastern lords swell their ranks with hired hordes, and now that the wizards take a side, they want orcs fighting orcs.”
She nodded. “Thank you, for your aid.”
His voice was cold. “This is my people, too.”
The door banged closed behind her.
Rowena rushed to my side. “Did she break your arm?”
“I don’t think so.”
She was gone.
“She liked you,” Vrathgar said, still cold.
“How?”
“That’s the most sentimental I’ve seen her.”
Khal sighed. “That’s not true.”
Rowena was still staring at Vrathgar. “How are you standing?”
“I…don’t know.” He rolled one shoulder, tested the leg. “It feels like an older wound.”
“If it’s the medicine not wearing off yet, you shouldn’t push it.”
He nodded, a frown still etched across his face.
“My mother is right about one thing,” Khal said, quiet. “If you’re able, you should take her home.”
Vrathgar inhaled, tested his arm, that leg. “That makes sense. I shouldn’t trouble you longer.” He did not look at me.
Zhana, Tyralk’s mother, was speaking, and as they went into Orcish I was left out again. She waved towards me.
Vrathgar spoke. “She’s worried about your dress. She’s offering you something to wear.”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you want to walk through the enclave reeking of blood?”
I flinched.
“Wait,” said Rowena. “I’ll get something. Please. Wait.”
When she returned, it was with a bundle of blue cloth.
I washed in the dim backroom, handfuls of water and a soap that smelled like pine tar.
It was such a relief to get the blood off my skin that my throat got tight.
The smell coming off my old dress was terrible.
I wondered if I’d ever get the stain out, what had happened to the cloth the town had given me, if I could bargain for needles, how quickly I could sew something else.
In the room beyond the curtain, voices rumbled.
“Rissa's party is back.”
“Just what we needed. More of an audience.”
“But that means Larrakh will be with us. She's blooded now. She can bear witness.”
“I am not dragging down your baby cousin.”
“You are not dragging down anyone.”
“Don't call her the baby cousin; she's older than me.”
“Yeah, and you're a smaller baby, Tyralk.”
I was clean. The dress laced up, snug.
“Hagmar found your effects in the forest. He brought them to the cabin.”
“Sounds like him.”
I pulled aside the curtain.
Vrathgar regarded me, impassive, like he’d stripped the recognition from his eyes. That was fine. I was used to the idea that he was angry. I could endure whatever he was going to do.
“Hey, that's better!” Tyralk crowed. “You don't look like you just butchered someone now!” I froze. I must have reacted, because his eyes widened. “Not that there's anything wrong with killing someone sometimes, Rowena’s done it plenty—"
“Tyralk,” Vrathgar said. “Shut up.”
And then his hand was on my back, and he was guiding me towards the door.
Khal stepped to join him. “I’ll walk with you.”
“Don’t be an idiot.” There was no venom in Vrathgar’s tone. “You are not required to go find trouble for yourself.”
“You’re at more risk alone.”
“I will be safe walking to my own house. The people who hate you want me alive, because they want you ashamed.”
“I could go,” Tyralk muttered. He was still flushed after his fumble over my murders.
“Mmhm. I love your mother too much to drag her kid along. Go eat something before your last milk-teeth come in.” He got us out the door, that confident roll to his shoulders, but I noticed that he slowed on the stone steps, that he took the way down more carefully, and I stayed close.
I wasn’t sure what I’d do if he started to fall.