Page 1 of Alien Orc Warlord's Captive Bride

1

RAGNAR

The sun's scorching gaze sears my bare chest as I loosen my fist, a silent command to advance from one rocky sanctuary to the next. Our breath is raw and panting. The second my scouts reported that the Lord Ashbourne was amassing troops, I took my two most trusted men and sprinted from our mountain home to intercept them. I needed to see with my own eyes what the bastard was doing.

Ulric and Gorak grimace at the subterfuge, wanting to stand tall as we skulk closer to the village. Crouching, we’re the same height as humans, though their weak, pink bodies are far lighter than ours. I clutch the hilt of my blade in my hand. Only I can wield it. It has a blue-black gemstone in it, a gemstone that seems to suck in all the light, glowing when I cut down a foe. When I think of death, the black blade extends, wrapped in lightning that hungers for blood.

“Sneaking and hiding like rats,” whispers Ulric.

“Silence.” No other in the tribe could speak to him like that and not get a broken jaw. As Chieftain, he defers to me, even when it burns him, and I know that neither of these two would ever take a blade to me to contest my spot. I guided our tribe through the worst horrors we endured, horrors inflicted by the heartless Lord.

Humans have weak eyes and ears, but in the middle of the day, even those fools could spot us if we’re careless in the glaring midday sun. I motion to the ground, and there’s no grumble of complaint as we crawl over the crest of the hill.

I don’t know the name of the village. They leave us alone, and we leave them, despite my hatred for humans. Ashbourne still sends his patrols into the mountains, trying to pick off a young Orc alone, to display their heads on his walls so that we cannot give them a proper funeral pyre. I try to rein in the youngsters, but I remember how headstrong I was as a teenager, and how I was nearly caught by one of his raiding parties. There can be no mistakes now. I let no one else but I and my most trusted men go to find what the bastard is planning.

“Fucking humans. These scum nearly starved us out,” snarls Gorak. After cresting the hill, we can see there’s no one in sight to hear us, so I forgive him the outburst.

Thatched roofs, packed dirt streets with wooden planks over the mud, now filled with soldiers in black armor. I hate that armor. When hit with spears or blades, the force of the blow is reflected back, shattering the weapon and your hand if you don’t release your grip quick enough. I adjusted our tactics. Boulders dropped from above, pits dug and covered in brush, spears thrown from afar. We know our lands, and they are a hellhole for his forces.

That is why instead of fighting us, he slaughtered the herds before they migrated back before the long winter. He chose to starve his own people just to try to kill us, but he does not understand the mind of the Orc. We will be on this land, long after he is gone.

“What the hell is he planning?” Ulric says, keeping his tone low, when I see the Lord Ashbourne himself. Gaunt, tall for a human, he must be near fifty, with a face that looks carved from rock, all hard lines with a cruel gaze. He is standing in the village square, and in front of him are twenty young women.

I focus my eyes, the village and landscape becoming dull as I enhance the scene. Their white dresses billow in the breeze, soft things, some with rips, pulled out at the last minute. Lord Ashbourne looks them up and down, surveying them, deciding.

“The old bastard wants to choose a mate.”

It sickens me. They stand like livestock, rather than people, and he will not win his chosen bride's heart through courage, but through coercion. My blood boils at the thought of him taking one of the women to be his plaything.

No. Not a plaything or a trophy. The old man wants an heir. One of these women will have a belly swollen with a child within the year.

“Poor woman. Even a human doesn’t deserve that,” says Ulric.

“They’re all the same. All of them. Filled with greed and hate,” growls Gorak. His father refused to eat his share during the last winter. He was sickly and viewed himself as a burden. He didn’t make it.

All twenty women are staring straight at the ground, terrified yet glancing up almost hopefully. Being picked as his bride would not be easy, but it might be easier than surviving another winter, with the herds thinned and the great grain wagons demanding their share each year. I’ve watched those wagons, loaded up with the fruits of the village’s labor, setting out to make the day’s journey to the castle.

All of them are dressed in their finest clothes, nervous and afraid...

All but one. Unlike them, she's in simple brown clothes, still some dirt on them, clothes more suited for hunting than for being shown off like cattle.

She stares up defiantly. In her early twenties, a striking beauty. Her shoulder-length golden hair frames her tanned face, and she has strong features, unlike the usual softness of humans, her lips red and plump. I can’t help imagining how my rough fingers would feel against her softness, and my cock stirs under my loincloth. My heart thuds as something builds up in me, something as primal as the hunt, and Iwanther. I want this creature as my own. No female of my tribe has caused this reaction in me, this insistent, deep urge topossessher, body and soul, to make her scream my name in ecstasy and surrender to me.

The Lord Ashbourne walks up to a woman, perhaps only nineteen, a wisp of a creature who is staring straight down. She trembles as he grabs her mouth, pulling her lips down to check her teeth. It sickens me. If I had the forces, I'd charge now, but the humans are numerous and well-armed. My own species are few, but strong.

He gives a hard jerk of his head. "Leave," he says, and she scurries off, disappearing into one of the nearby houses with relief.

Then he walks to the woman who stirred my desires.

The Lord’s hand rises, and he points to her, his bony finger singling her out from the rest.

A young man runs in, yelling, and is backhanded by a guard. He falls, and another guard slams his foot against his back, pushing him into the dirt, drawing his rifle and pressing the end of it against the back of his neck. The tiniest movement of his finger, and the boy’s life will be ended, too soon.

Rifles. Impossible to decipher how they work from a glance, and too valuable to dissemble. A coward’s weapon. You need no strength to pull a trigger, and yet, they are supremely useful. We’ve taken five from raiding parties, and boxes of the ammunition that goes inside of them, and I’ve trained men in their use.

“My first wedding gift to you, my bride-to-be. This boy is important to you?” The Lord’s voice, a voice used to being obeyed, carries.

“He’s my brother. Please.” The desperation in her voice makes me yearn to cut the head from the Lord’s neck. I hate him deeper than I thought possible.

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