Page 14 of The Orc's Bride

Urgan let his finger brush against my lips, stroking across them once, and I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from reacting to his touch.

And I didn’t feel even one bit scared.

That was the thing I remembered the most afterwards. How eerie the forest had been. How tense Urgan was behind me, how alert. How his finger felt pressed against my lips.

How utterly safe and protected I felt.

There was a rustle in the undergrowth ahead of us, behind a bend in the road. It was so soft I would have missed it. But Urgan didn’t. He pulled on the reins, stopping Brrthak mid-step. He growled to the other orcs, just one sound. They moved instantly, dispersing, giving him space. Facing the bend in the road.

I didn’t make a sound. But as I looked around, I could see a loose formation around me and Urgan. We were being protected, I realized.Iwas being protected.

The leaves ahead shivered. There was a quiet, reedy sound, like a soft giggle. It sounded all wrong and made my skin prickle with cold terror.

A large red shape shot out of the trees, so fast it blurred. With a high, piping sound, it dashed at the orc that was closest to it. It was trying to bite his leg, but at the last moment, the orc’s horse moved, and the beast’s fangs sank into its flank.

Everything happened so fast I could barely process what I was seeing. But now, the creature wasn’t moving for a moment, and I could see it clearly.

It looked like an anatomy model from the Tradesman’s book. He had showed me once what a human and an orc would look like if they had been stripped of their skin. Both had hard strips of red and pink muscle wrapped around their frames, with small deposits of yellow fat.

That was what the creature was. A skinless body of naked, pulsing muscle, with rotting patches of fur hanging off its back. Its eyes were red and mad. It was shaped like a wolf. Although I’d never seen one as large as this.

Urgan was shouting orders, his words as sharp as the crack of a whip. The other orcs raised their throwing axes. They aimed and let the heavy blades fly. One missed. Two buried themselves in the creature’s back.

It gave a high, piercing scream, which sounded like a child’s plaintive cry. It let go of the horse’s flank, blood still dripping from between its jaws. It turned around, looking at the others. I could see the axes had not been enough to kill it. But it seemed slower. The pain was dulling its reflexes.

The red, crazy eyes of the beast settled on me.

“No,” Urgan grunted.

With one powerful swing, he jumped off Brrthak’s back and landed by the horse. The earth shook. Brrthak pranced back, giving Urgan room, taking me out of the beast’s range.

And the beast charged. All its fury, all its mad pain was now focused on Urgan.

It ran at him, fast, and Urgan didn’t move. My treacherous mouth shouted for him to duck, to run, but he stayed there, crouching, all the strength of his massive muscles coiled and ready to strike.

When the beast was almost on top of him, its bloodied jaws inches away from Urgan’s neck, he turned, gracefully swiveling out of the way, his hand landing between the beast’s shoulder blades with a wet smack. He was so fast that I would have missed it had I blinked. The beast landed hard, its plaintive bark sounding confused.

But Urgan wasn’t finished.

He grabbed the red, wet meat, and picked the creature up. The tendons around his neck tensed from the effort. The creature writhed in his powerful grip, but he wouldn’t let go. He raised it high over his head, even though it looked so heavy, and threw it on the ground.

Bones crunched. One last giggling sigh escaped the beast’s muzzle, and it was still.

Urgan wiped his hands on the nearest mossy tree trunk and faced his men.

“All good? Was anyone bitten?”

No one had been. He gave orders, his eyes now even more alert, scanning the trees around us as he was speaking. We would move in a tight formation and we would ride late into the night. When we stopped, it would only be for a few hours to give the horses some rest. We would keep watch, so two orcs would always be awake.

The orc whose horse had been bitten took out a wide, curved blade and slit the horse’s throat. Just like that. He patted it roughly on the side when the horse’s eyes grew still. And then, the orc dragged the carcass into the bushes. The horse’s side where the creature had bitten it was exposed. The wound was oozing black, putrid blood.

Some arrangements were made in the harsh, fast speech of orcs in their battle mode. Two orcs would share a horse, riding and running in turns. Soon – too soon – everyone was ready to set out, all eyes vigilant, all muscles taut.

I hadn’t expected the aftermath of a fight to be so tense. The enemy had been slain, but no one was celebrating. They were all ready for more bloodshed.

When Urgan had finished giving orders, he wiped his hands against the grass and spat on them, rubbing the remains of the creature’s blood off. When his hands were reasonably clean, he came over to me. I was still sitting atop Brrthak, watching everything with wide eyes.

“You aren’t hurt,” he said.

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