Page 5 of Agor

“Hey! That’s disgusting,” I protested with a dreadful realization that I wasnotrepulsed. On the contrary, with a shiver of delight, I wondered what this warm, thick tongue would feel like in many other places of my body. “Just kill me now,” I groaned, praying for a quick, painless death before I completely lost my mind.

He studied my face, a corner of his mouth lifting in a lopsided smirk.

“No, my wiggly little newt. I think you’ll bring far more fun to me alive.”

Trepidation spread through me, more freezing than the wetlands in the dead of winter.

Chapter 2

Becca

Yanking me to my feet, the orc chief unwrapped a leather belt from around one of his thick biceps and tied my wrists with it.

“If you use your legs for running or kicking again, I’ll tie them up too,” he threatened. “Then I’ll drag you all the way to my keep by your hair. Understood?”

Nothing good waited for me in the orcs’ keep. But being dragged there would be even worse. Deeper in the woods, the soft moss-covered ground gave place to swamp mud and patches of standing water filled with leeches.

“I’ll walk,” I promised somberly.

“Good girl.” The uncharacteristic warmth in his rumble resonated with an unexpected wave of hot tingles through my body. That was before I realized that his last words weren’t meant for me but for his dog.

He rested his large hand on the animal’s narrow head. Her ears flattened completely against her skull, the way I’d seen river hounds’ ears did when they dove under water for frogs, turtles, or fish. River hounds would hunt a much bigger prey too. One of this size would easily kill and devour a human if given a chance. With a reproachful glance from the beast’s yellow eyes, I shifted away from her, cautiously hiding behind her owner’s broad back.

Clearly not trusting my promise not to run, the orc chief clipped the end of my restraint to his belt. As we trudged through the forest, he didn’t look back. With my hands tied in front of me, I had to jog to keep up. If I tripped and fell, I feared he’d just keep going, dragging me through the cold mud.

The orcs’ keep proved to be a long distance away. We hiked for hours, stopping only twice. Once to take a drink of water. The other time, to let me pee behind a bush with the chief’s dog as my guard. As I crouched to do my business, she sat nearby and stared at me unblinkingly, then led me back to her master, nipping at my ankles to hurry me up.

The sun had set, and the terrifying night took reign over the bog orcs’ forest. Patches of mist rose from the ground, turning every shadow into a creature of nightmare. Despite feeling exhausted, I ran faster, keeping close to the wide back of my captor. He might be brutal, but at least he was alive, unlike the sinister apparitions that seemed to fill the air all around us.

Shortly after nightfall, the two other orcs joined us, and I wondered if they had caught up with Ilya and the women. Since they returned empty-handed, I hoped the women got away. I also hoped that Gleb had escaped the orcs, too, and reunited safe and sound with his wife Faeena and their two little daughters.

Then I noticed the crusty scuffs on the orcs’ knuckles and the rusty smears on their knives tucked under their belts. The chief gave them a questioning glance, and the two nodded, as if confirming a job had been finished.

My heart sank with sorrow.

Gleb and Faeena had been my best friends for as long as I could remember. When we were in our early twenties, Gleb and I tried to date. He was my longest relationship, though physically we’d never gone past a few kisses. He used to kiss me tenderly, ever so gently, but deep inside, I often wished he’d just push me against a wall and kiss me until I forgot how to breathe.

When I finally got enough courage to tell him what I wanted, Gleb looked terrified. His fear of hurting me proved too great, no matter how hard I tried to convince him I wasn’t that easily hurt. He broke up with me only a few weeks into our dating, gently explaining to me that he could never be the man I needed. A month later, he asked for my permission to date Faeena. And they had been inseparable ever since.

The three of us remained great friends. I trusted Gleb with my life and would lay my own life on the line for him, his wife, and his daughters.

I vowed to do everything to survive now, if only to live long enough to find out what happened to them and avenge them if needed.

When I thought I couldn’t possibly make another step forward, the tall wall of the orcs’ keep rose in our path. The wall was so high, I couldn’t see where it ended up above us in the darkness.

The chief knocked on the gate, and the barred window opened. Light of bonfires twinkled inside.

“Chief?” A face blocked the light in the window. “You’re back?”

“Open up,” my captor barked.

Heavy rattling of metal chains and clinking locks came from the inside. What were the orcs afraid of, living under locks like that?

Worry wormed into my chest when I thought about the old, flimsy wagons and caravans where my people lived now and the simple post-and-rail fence we’d managed to put up around our settlement.

As the orcs led me through the gates, I studied the wall in the flickering light of the bonfires. Constructed from thick, polished logs inserted into the ground, the wall was high and solid, impossible to climb from the outside. As we entered the keep,however, I noticed several ladders and scaffoldings on the inside of the wall for orcs to climb to the top if needed.

The orcs’ dwellings also looked sturdy and solid, built on top of tree stumps to keep them dry and off the ground. The settlement seemed enormous. The dwellings formed streets and alleys with bonfires burning cheerfully in small plazas all around.

---