Page 73 of The Orc's Rage

So Lord Kargorr set about to creating an appealing campsite that the othergrrosekcould call home during the time they spent here, before they traveled south and conquered new lands. He considered their orclings and what they might need to be comfortable and find entertainment. He had the baths expanded and ordered new cooks to be trained to accommodate the incoming force.

Orgha had not yet returned when Lord Gannag finally arrived. It unsettled Kargorr to not have his right hand at his side during such a momentous event, but he would have to trust himself to manage whatever might come.

Lord Gannag himself waited on his cat just outside the entrance to theparogfor Kargorr to come out and greet him. They each thumped their chests and nodded.

“Welcome to ourparog,” Kargorr said. “As it is now yours.”

He would make this lord feel like a valued guest, and then it would be easier to give him commands later, when it mattered most. That was when Kargorr would enforce who was truly in charge of this affair.

Settling in was no easy task. Lord Gannag had arrived with his own tents and poles, animals and gear, but his mammoths could not descend into the lowlands with their sledges. Lord Kargorr sent many of his own to assist, and it required days upon days of hard labor to transport all of Gannag’sparogand their many belongings.

In the meantime, Kargorr was grateful he had commissioned additional tents, though his leatherworkers and tailors had labored themselves into exhaustion. He had to extract Cedar personally at night so she did not overwork herself and put the orcling at risk.

She had put up a surprising amount of fight about it. She wanted to be helpful, to put in the same hours of work the others were, but he would not allow hisyapirato run herself into the ground.

Though the first wave ofgrrosekhad only just settled into their new tents and others were still coming, it was a fine night, and Lord Kargorr was grateful for the clear sky and warm air that came in on a breeze as the bonfire was lit and the drums began.

His next gift: a marvelous celebration of Lord Gannag’s arrival.

With her permission, two of Cedar’s pigs were cooked alongside fresh venison, and even chickens that had persisted throughout the winter. Ale flowed, and though the revelers did not all have roofs over their heads that night—and many would have to share their homes with strangers—they were in high spirits, enraptured in the promise of their mission southward.

We will conquer the humans. We will take back what is ours. We will, we will, we will.Kargorr was glad to listen in on these conversations, and as Cedar sat on his lap at the raised table beside Lord Gannag’s, a small smile played at her lips. She could hear it, too, and it pleased her.

He liked that it pleased her.

“Now that I’ve seen her with my own eyes,” Lord Gannag said, drawing Lord Kargorr’s attention, “I understand your attraction, Kargorr.”

The other orc spoke in thegrrosek’s own tongue, of course. Cedar turned her head and tilted it to show she didn’t understand.

“He is complimenting you,” Kargorr told her, possessively patting her rounded belly. “Indeed,” he answered the other lord. “There is much to admire about her.”

Lord Gannag laughed and lifted his mug of mead. “A good choice of concubine.” Then he threw it back and drank.

The wordconcubineunsettled Lord Kargorr, and he couldn’t help glancing at Cedar’s face. She did not show she comprehended, though that perhaps irritated him more. She couldn’t understand what Gannag said about her and telling her would only upset the balance between them.

“She will bear me a fine orcling,” was all Kargorr said as he drank from his own vessel. It was dishonest, but necessary—perhaps a strategy more critical now than ever before.

This lord could not know how a human woman held Kargorr’s heart in her tiny little hands, or how she could crush it into bloody flesh if she so chose.

Cedar

She did not like the look of Lord Gannag, not at all.

It wasn’t that he was ugly, or any uglier than any other orc. In fact, he might even be more handsome than Kargorr in a tedious sort of way. He had no great puckered scar, no blaze in his eyes, none of the same ferocity and hunger for action as her orc did.

And he was not nearly so tall.

Herorc. Cedar saw how many of the new warriors looked at him. They did not hide their interest in him, as many of Lord Kargorr’s orcs did. Kargorr’s own camp had seen what Cedar meant to their lord, but these newcomers were different. Orc men and women alike passed by their table with offerings to thank Lord Kargorr for welcoming them, but it clearly meant much more than that to some.

Many gifts were quite elaborate, valuable objects that made Cedar feel sick to her stomach. Those who left such gifts, she knew, were hoping for a measure of Lord Kargorr’s attention in exchange. She did not like that, despite her presence, they felt so confident as to make their interest in him known.

But Cedar was a possession, much like these carved animals and hunting knives and bone jewelry, and Lord Kargorr did not dissuade any of them from believing they might have a chance at him.

Cedar especially didn’t like Lord Gannag’s roaming eyes, how he stared at her when he thought Lord Kargorr was not looking. She could, though she pretended not to, understand what he said about her. His gaze combed her body, removing her layers of clothing, and Cedar resisted the urge to cover herself. Instead, she smiled prettily, though it unnerved her.

But Kargorr did not hide his ownership of her, frequently stroking her belly, and grinding her ass down against his groin as the night wore on and the alcohol worked on him. And as the orcs around the fire divided carefully into two groups, then began to mingle... the alcohol worked on them, too. Orcs from each side went out to greet the others, and many coupled off. This could be a great boon, Cedar thought as she watched them, as perhaps other orclings were being made between the two groups. It could unify them, help them work together better and serve Kargorr’s cause.

She wondered when she had come to care so much about his success, about his mission, when it should haunt her.

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