Page 44 of The Outcast Orc

And why should I? I’d burned through so many lives already, it was ridiculous to think I would get another chance. I’d been born with my cord wrapped around my neck, blue as a sapphire and still as a stone. But somehow the midwife managed to slap some life into me. She couldn’t do the same for my mum—but honestly, what can you expect from a two-bit leech?

Maybe death didn’t want me. I’d survived being passed around a group of marauders and left for dead, and even made it through the slaver’s tent with my hide intact. Maybe I truly would recover. I took another experimental breath. Yep. Breathing was indeed getting easier.

I swung down off the stone slab I’d affectionately dubbed mybierand set off in search of Taruut. The shaman spent all his waking hours plying me with incantations and herbs, so he’d be thrilled to finally see me up and around.You’re the key to everything,he’d always be telling me—and while his whole mystic routine was clearly just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to keep his clan happy, I’d grown pretty fond of the weird old guy.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for his lackeys. If I knew anything at all, I knew men. And while these might be a lot bigger and a little greener than the sort I normally dealt with in the brothels, their macho swagger was the same. The important thing was to show no fear. Men like that got off on lording their power over others. When you proved to them that you didn’t really give a damn, you spoiled all their fun and they would leave you alone.

Unless they smacked you into next week—I touched the healing handprint on my cheek—but usually they left you alone.

I followed a dim passage, reflecting on the fact that I had no idea where I was going because up until now, I wasn’t able to walk. My legs were still shaky and I definitely needed to put away something more substantial than the herbal broth I’d been subsisting on, but at least I was upright.

Sound carried funny in the caves, where plinks and plunks of water echoed like bells, and the hiss of steam occasionally spat from a random fissure. I came upon a chamber brimming with weird mushrooms and another filled with bones. And somehow, I’d managed to go in a full circle and end up right where I’d started. Either that or there were just an awful lot of skulls around. Soon, I was exhausted from my wandering and fatigued by the weight of the lantern. But when I doubled back to slip onto my trusty bier, I found myself instead in a tunnel that ended in a tapestry. A pretty gruesome one, rife with images of orcs beheading things.

I was peering at the workmanship on a spurting spine when I realized the tapestry was gently shifting. I poked at the beheaded creature, and the fabric moved. It wasn’t covering a wall—but a passageway.

I lifted a corner of the weighty tapestry and slipped past. The room beyond was dark and close, filled with all kinds of juju nonsense, all of it thick with the smell of orc. I held up my lantern to get my bearings, and a mound of cloth in the corner stirred. Startled, I blundered into a pile of painted bones, and they clattered almost musically to the stone floor.

The cloth shifted, and then said on a ragged breath, “Archibald….”

“Taruut?” I hurried over and folded to my knees, thinking the old man must have fallen—or worse, that some rival had slipped past his guards and attacked him. But, no, he was just lying there on the ground with an embroidered coverlet pulled up to his neck.

Or maybe…it was a shroud.

“Do you need help?” I said, all in a rush. “Are you hurt?”

He beckoned for me to come closer, and I bent my ear to his lips. Up close, I realized his breathing had the same wet rattle to it that mine did—and even in the dark, stifling heat of the cave, my blood ran cold.

While the old man had been curing me, I hadn’t just been lying around doing nothing. I’d been hard at work contaminating him.

“Where’s that bitter soup you’ve been pouring down my gullet? I’ll go get some—it’ll put you right in no time.”

I’d meant to scramble to my feet—to do something, anything, to make myself useful. But Taruut’s gnarled hand shot out from under the fabric and clamped around my wrist like irons.

“It’s fitting that you’re here.” His voice was a hollow wheeze. Barely a breath. “Bear witness to the event that will bring an end to the conflict with our neighbors once and for all.”

“Oh?” I said with forced brightness. “And what’s that?”

But instead of an answer, the blind shaman just smiled a cryptic smile as his hand fell from my wrist, and with a final wheeze, he went silent.

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