Page 36 of Agor

If Grat knew the truth, he’d probably chain me to the keep’s wall while he organized a raid on the humans in revenge.

Instead of Grat’s, a chipped, raspy voice answered me from behind. “You do what your grandfather did when he courted me, my sweet boy.”

“Granny Magra?” I turned to face my grandmother. “What are you doing here?”

As she got older, my granny had slowed down, yet the old shrew still managed somehow to be everywhere at once.

“I came here to enjoy a stein of ale, just like you.” She narrowed her duckweed-green eyes at me. “Except that you don’t look like you can even taste the ale when you’re chugging it the way you are. What ails you, chief? Women troubles?”

I smirked, rolling my shoulders back. The last thing I needed was for my people to think I was turning into some love-sick puppy, especially now when my right to wield the High Chief’s mace was being challenged.

On the other hand, Granny Magra might have some solutions to my very real “women troubles.” She’d been around for a very long time, and they said wisdom came with age.

“What did my grandfather do?” I asked.

“Ahhh,” she chuckled, tossing her head back with a dreamy smile. “First, he gave me everything that I needed. Then, he gave me all the things that I wanted. And finally, he offered me something I didn’t even know I needed, but it made my heart full.”

Chapter 9

Becca

Taking a bath in a wagon was always a challenge. Taking it on a chilly autumn morning was a border-line torture. But it’d been six days since I had a proper bath last. And that was to wash off the vast amount of green orc seed that a certain orc had spilled all over my thighs.

That night, I’d waited for a little while, giving Agor some time to get away from the settlement. Then I raised an alarm, claiming that the orc had torn through his restraints, fought his way outside of the community hall, and escaped. My tunic was long enough to cover the rips in my pants. But my torn neckline and the frayed, broken ropes had been enough to confirm my story.

People believed me because I’d never sided with an enemy before. No one would ever imagine I’d release the orc after letting him fuck my brains out under the guise of guarding him.

Telling the lie left a foul aftertaste in my mouth, but if I had to do it again, I would. I couldn’t just stand back and watch them kill him.

Heaving a bucket of ice-cold water on top of my wood-burning stove to warm it up, I sighed, wondering if using a soapy washcloth on my naked body would remind me about Agor’s tongue sliding over my skin.

Literally everything reminded me of him. Everywhere I looked—the forest, the main square of the settlement, the community hall that Agor and I had desecrated so thoroughly that night—everything made my thoughts drift to him. Keeping my eyes closed proved even worse, as my mind conjured new scenes and images of us together that often led to my touching myself, which sadly left me feeling even more bereft and lonely afterwards.

“It’s just sex,” I muttered under my breath, stoking the stove with more wood. “It just must be that time of the month or something—the horniest time.”

Waiting for the water to boil, I was just about to have a breakfast of cattail hearts and mashed cranberries in lieu of a dressing when a blood-curdling scream tore through the chilly morning.

A woman screamed just outside of my door as if she was being murdered.

I grabbed my sword from the scabbard hanging over the kitchen chair, flipped the lock latch off, then swung the door open, ready to stab, chop, and maim her attacker.

Faeena stood on the stairs leading up to my porch that was barely big enough for a doormat. A metal mug was rolling down the path from my wagon, spilling its contents in a steaming trail on the cold ground. Faeena’s usually serene gray-blue eyes were opened impossibly wide.

“Oh, dear gods our creators, Becca, what is this?” Nervously tugging at the end of her thick, black braid, she pointed with her other shaking hand at the bloody carcass of a wild boar left by my door.

The beast was huge, with its body hanging off my porch on both ends. Its throat had been slit, and it must’ve been slit pretty recently, as the blood was still dripping from it and under my porch.

People rushed to my wagon from all over the settlement, alerted by Faeena’s terrified scream.

“I was just bringing you some cranberry tea...” she tried to explain in a trembling voice.

After Agor’s escape, Faeena hadn’t asked me many questions, probably sensing it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. I couldn’t tell her the truth and expose myself as the one who let the orc escape. Neither did I wish to keep lying to Faeena, of all people. So, I didn’t talk at all. What she assumed, I didn’t know, but she’d been fussing a lot about me, bringing me food, volunteering to brush my hair, and even offering to do my laundry, which I adamantly refused, of course. With two small children and a husband, Faeena already had enough heads to brush and laundry to do to last her a lifetime.

“What happened?” Gleb rushed to his wife.

She whimpered, shaking both hands at the boar, then hid her face on her husband’s chest.

“I didn’t put it here,” I explained to Gleb and about two dozen other people who had gathered in front of my wagon by now. Two of the three elders had joined them, too, Artyom and Kazimir.

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