Page 6 of Valka

The males below him moved quickly apart, lest they be splattered with Valka’s spittle. They grumbled and raised their voices in protest, but not a one of them was brave enough to actually spout threats at him. Instead they pretended they were only slightly affected by his disposition, then quickly turned their attentions to the incoming skaevin, flying more slowly than normal, delivering something very precious held securely within their talons.

Valka didn’t wait to see what the huge predatory seabirds had brought back to their handlers. Instead, he hissed and growled at the lot of them to be sure they all knew exactly what he thought of them and their lack of honor. Unable to tempt any of them into a fight, he turned his back on the lot of them, walking back across the flat ledge that would lead him to his cave, high above the edges of the stronghold his tribe lived in below. He should be dead. It was the honorable way to end one’slife. And because he wasn’t, there was no honor left to life, and in that lay his lack of motivation to do more than simply wait for the end of his miserable days, hoping against hope that he’d be given a place in the great battle waging on in the next life. All of his peers had long ago fallen, leaving him the lone survivor. Whatever he’d done to displease his ancestors enough to leave him here alive and alone, he planned to more than make up for when he finally arrived in the next life so he could earn his rightful place among them. In the meantime, he was left here among the simpering, bartering weaklings below.

Chapter 4

Valka lay flat on his back, snoring in his furs, his grudge against the rest of his tribe temporarily forgotten as his dreams returned him to his younger days of glory. “Haaaaaah!” he bellowed in his sleep, his arm swiping for some imagined enemy while he dreamed.

“Valka kill you!” he shouted, before his arm fell back to his furs, and another feral snore rattled his cave walls.

Somewhere in the depths of his dreams, a woman sobbed pitifully.

“Stop! No whine! Bad female, whine like baby! Valka kill you, too!”

The woman continued sobbing and soon another was shrieking in fear.

“Weak female,” he scowled, flopping over onto his side.

More sobbing and shrieking irritated him to the point that he tried in his sleep to get up to make the female stop crying. Instead, he found himself sitting beside his bed of furs, flat on his ass on the dirt floor of his cave. He looked around while still in a half-dream state, while he struggled to make sense of the fact that he was alone, yet still heard the nerve-grating crying. His gaze traveled over the too-familiar walls of his cave, helping him establish reality from his dream.

Huffing like an irate bull, he got to his feet, following the grating sound. He stomped out of his cave and across the twenty or so feet of flat ledge to look down on those who lived beneath him. The sunlight blinded him momentarily as it shined in his barely awake eyes. Throwing his hands up to block the sun, he moved a few feet to his left to take advantage of the shadows hiscliff created. Valka blinked again, trying to understand what he was seeing.

Apparently the skaevin had made multiple trips back to the ship during the night, because there were wooden crates and bolts of cloth scattered about. He even noticed some corked bottles of wine that had been set carefully aside. The very few females already incorporated into their tribe were working their way through the dozen or so crates to determine what was inside them that might be of use or value to the tribe. But most of the commotion originated a short distance from the crates and bolts of cloth. And those responsible for the commotion were the source of his irritation. Seven crying, sobbing, human females.

He threw his arms in the air to emphasize his outrage. “No whine!” he bellowed, still holding his arms aloft.

Most everyone on ground level stopped what they were doing and looked up at him. Even the crying females stopped sobbing, the worst of them hiccuping herself into silence as she watched him with terrified eyes.

One of the females of the tribe spoke to him calmly. “They’re afraid.”

“Back to ship!” he demanded throwing one of his hugely muscled arms out in the direction of the shore.

“We will not return them to the ship, they would die. We will keep them alive and sell them, or barter for goods with them. This land always needs more females!” Raska insisted.

“Do not barter them away! Keep them for ourselves! There are not enough in our tribe to go around! You always sell them!” Skala complained.

“Human female crrrryyyyy,” Valka said, making a face that mimicked the crying females and he drew out the word cry to sound like a whine. “Get Orc female!” Valka ordered, changing from a whine to an angry snarl. Then without waiting for an answer, he turned and stalked back toward his cave.

“I don’t know who you think you are, or what you have in mind, but you will not be selling me or my friends like so much cattle! We are human beings, whether or not some of us cry, and we will be treated as such!”

Valka hesitated, intrigued by the demanding voice that seemed to answer his complaint. He turned around and walked close enough to the ledge that he could peek over the side without being seen. He watched long enough to realize the female wasn’t addressing him personally. She was staring at Raska. He’d never seen a human female stand up to anyone, much less an Orc.

“Exactly… you are human, which means your life is decided by me,” Raska snapped, pounding his own chest.

“You are lucky our skaevin didn’t eat you along with your males!” Skala added, shouting at the woman who dared to defy them.

“They were not our males! We were held against our will and are glad to be free of them!” the loud, older woman shouted defiantly.

Skala’s head canted to the left as he regarded the female. Slowly he approached her, his head gradually leaning back to the right, then back to the left again. “Then you should be thankful we killed your captors and grateful for a chance to repay us by being a good female to any who are desperate enough to purchase you.”

“Desperate? Any male would be lucky to have any one of us as his wife!” she declared angrily.

Valka squatted to sit on his heels and make it less likely that he was seen as his curiosity got the best of him, leaving him unable to walk away quite yet. He sat quietly and listened, entertained for the moment.

“Wife? What is wife?” Raska asked, turning to look askance at some of those near enough to have heard the exchange.

“Wife is mate,” Liuka, one of the tribe’s females answered.

“Mate! You think you are mate?!” Skala asked, laughing boisterously. “You are old! You are loud! You are not pleasant! That one whines! There are only two or three that are worth keeping, the rest are too much trouble!” he said. “And you are all human! You will be lucky if you are rented out to those in need rather than hitched to a plow!”

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