Page 3 of Bound to the Orc King

Coils of black smoke slip out of the door, followed by a man dressed in a black leather vest, pants, and boots. He’s almost as tall as an orc and of slightly slimmer build, which means he’s still impressively muscled. Long black hair frames a pale face, butthe bare skin of his neck and arms writhes with dark tattoos, out of which pour shadows.

He’s no elf. There are no more elves, our cousins lost to a Dark God.

This is a dark fae.

He takes a step toward the closest tree, his hand outstretched, his eyes widening.

What will his dark magic do to it?

“Halt!” I bark.

His head whips around, and his lips curl in a snarl, exposing fangs. Shadows shoot from his extended arms, reaching for me.

My sword sings through the air, its length glinting in the firelight. The razor-sharp edge slices the shadows in two, their severed ends fading to nothingness.

The fae gives a pained grunt, his green eyes going wide. “Impossible. No blade can touch my shadows.”

“Fool.” I bare my tusks in a feral smile, battle lust rising within me. Moon steel is a special alloy, gifted to us by our goddess. It appears to have properties we never suspected. “My blade will do far more than touch you.”

His shadows punch toward me, coming from all sides.

I leap right, slicing the ones in front. But no matter how fast I am—and I’m exceedingly fast—I can’t avoid all of them. Pain bites into my left shoulder. I dive to the right. Rounding my back, I roll from shoulder to hip and spring upright, facing him, my sword slicing through more of his shadow tendrils.

He staggers back, clutching his chest as if I’ve done him a bodily injury.

When I advance, he dives through the door.

No! He can’t get away! He came alone, so he might have stumbled across the door by accident. But if he returns to Avalon, he’ll tell the other dark fae, and we’ll have a full-scale invasion on our hands.

I lunge forward. One footfall touches the beloved soil of Alarria, and the next falls on deadened ground, stripped of magic. Without the campfire, it’s darker in Avalon, but twin moons sail overhead, casting colorless light on a small clearing.

I leap after him, chasing the flickering sight of pale skin past the ruins of a stone house.

Instead of disappearing into the night-draped forest ahead, the fae launches into the air, his shadows forming wings that carry him up into the night sky. In moments, he’s lost to sight.

“Fuck.”

The dark fae have discovered the door to Alarria.

The village pub is a pale echo of its earlier revelry as I sit across from grim faces. Glow stones cast golden light that warms the honey-colored wood of the living heart tree that makes up the walls, ceiling, and floor. This should be a place of nothing but joy, but we’ve shoved aside the tankards of ale to make battle plans instead of celebration.

The two orcs across from me radiate strength, their seven-foot frames packed with slabs of hard muscle that their brown leather pants and linen tunic tops do little to hide. We’re three of a kind, all with swords belted at our hips, and there’s no one I’d rather have at my side.

Wranth’s frown threatens to dig permanent furrows into his green brow, his lips peeling back from his tusks in a silent snarl. In years past, he was one of the fiercest of my guard and is one of the best swordsmen I know.

Dravarr scowls harder the longer I speak and flicks his long black hair over his shoulder with an impatient shove. The trimmed beard hugging his jaw highlights the flat line of his lips.

It doesn’t bode well that these two warriors, who I now depend upon as my most prized advisors, look even dourer than I feel.

“I don’t want an invading horde this near my village,” Dravarr growls. As warlord of Moon Blade Village, it’s his duty to protect his people.

Yet his people aremypeople as well, along with all other orcs in Alarria. I may not stand on pomp and circumstance, yet I am still king. “I do not want that either. But the same holds true for every village.”

“There’s Elmswood Keep,” Wranth says. My cousin and I grew up in the castle together, even if we didn’t know we’re related until recently. “As the only stone structure, it’s the most defensible.”

“It is.” I nod. “But the village surrounding it is not.” Orcs love their heart tree cottages, cocooned in the life and magic of living trees, and who can blame them? I know I prefer staying in them in every village I visit.

Strategies and tactics fill my mind, ones learned from ancient history. Orcs were prized warriors in our home realm of Avalon, our battle prowess turning the tide of many a war. But in the three-hundred years we’ve been isolated in Alarria, we’ve never faced all-out war.

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