Page 10 of Alien Orc Warlord's Captive Bride

She pauses in her painting and takes in a sharp breath. Even without seeing her face, I can imagine her brows furrowing, her kind features turning hard. I've said the wrong thing.

"You killed the migrating herds of elk we rely on to get through the winter. I was up here, bringing medicine to Targok, the former Chieftain, and I saw it through the window." Her voice is raw, pained. "Hundreds of them. Burning. The meat wasted. Our Chieftain led the raid of vengeance. They fought on open ground, and many of our strongest warriors died without ever dealing a blow, cut down by your coward rifles."

She takes in a huge breath. "No. I should not say you. Your people, but not you. I do not blame all of your kind for the actions of some."

I get a surge of guilt. I'd thought of all Orcs as marauding savages. Maybe near all of them are, but this woman is better than any human I've met.

Silga clears her throat. "Some Orcs tried to hunt the forests. Four. Only two came back, caught by patrols. You were able to evade them? To hunt?"

"Yes. I learned their movements. Mostly I fished, in a stream that was hard to get to. You had to go over a tree that fell over a raging river, and the guards rarely ever braved it in their patrols. I had a few near misses," I say, remembering bullets whistling past my ear as two soldiers laughed, yelling that they had hit me. When I got home, I had to mend the bullet hole in my tunic, without letting my little brother see, or he'd have insisted that he be the one to go out and hunt. I forbade it. He seemed to step on every branch when we walked in the forest, trip over vines, and barrel through bushes like a bear.

"Clever, clever," says Silga with admiration as the brushstrokes cover my back. Then she moves to the front. "Head up," she says, as she works her way down my neck, painting with expert strokes, dipping her brush into the pot. I see reds and yellows, like the colors of a sunset, but I resist the urge to look down. She hums happily as she works, a deep, low, rumbly sound as she concentrates.

It takes perhaps half an hour, then she puts her brushes away. "All done. Stand up," she says, and I stand, awkward in my loincloth. "How do you like it? Mirror," she says, and the back wall of the cave...changes.

The grey stone shimmers, then turns into a massive mirror. "How did you do that?" I gasp out, when I see myself, painted from my waist to my neck.

"Old technologies, from the time before. What do you think?"

"It's beautiful," I say, marveling at the intricate designs. I'm like a sunrise, painted reds and yellows that match with my blonde hair that is so different from the look of the Orcs. Standing next to Silga, the contrast is obvious. She towers over me, her body more muscular than that of a human man, all lithe strength and tautness, while I have curves and slopes to my body.

Then I see the fox that runs from my belly button to under my left breast, and I curse myself.

Why?

Why did I tell her of my poaching and subterfuge?

Idiot!

I should have said I baked bread and did make-up, or some other innocuous detail. Now I'm painted up as a thief of the night, and I've brought scrutiny and suspicion to myself.

And what's worse, despite my breasts being painted in deep reds, the pink of my nipples show, so unlike the flat chests of the Orc females. I'm nude, and I'll be on display for the entire tribe, a trophy that will be traded for their future, if they don't take me first.

"You are fortunate," says Silga.

"Why?"

"Ragnar has said you will have the place of honor by his side. Now come, for the festivities are starting."

"Festivities celebrating me being ransomed off for meat," I say, my voice going cold.

"I'm sorry," says Silga. "If I could have my way, you would be let free. Have you hungered, before? The last winter... I never want to go through anything like that again. I'm sorry," she says again, as if it changes anything.

Looking at myself in the huge mirror, the paint covering my body yet my face bare, my eyes intensely staring at myself, I do not feel alien. In the pure white wedding dress, dolled up for a cruel lord, I felt like a stranger. Here, now, somehow I fit in.

"Where did Ragnar get his scar?" I ask.

To my shock, she smiles, showing her two sharp fangs, so much shorter than the males. "The last winter, a great blizzard roared in. We had exhausted our rations. We used to feast on the elk all winter long, roasting their meat and drying it. But we had nothing.”

"Ragnar went out. Alone, with his blade. No one else dared to go out in the biting wind and snow. Most of our strongest warriors had been slain, but he came back alive from that raid. Four days, he was gone, then he returned, near death, his chest sliced open from one end to another by the tusk of a mammoth. He left a trail of blood that led us to it. He killed it himself, and nearly died for it, and that is how we survived the winter.

"He was out for a week, feverish and weak, our best healers tending to him, but no one thought he would survive. That man is a titan," she says in awe and respect. "He was elected our Chieftain. If anyone can get us through the next winter, it is him."

5

RAGNAR

Isit at the head of huge oak table, filled with Orc warriors and civilians from the village, who are allowed to feast in the great hall on occasions of magnitude. When I became chieftain, we had no supplies, no mead, no food, and there was no banquet for my crowning. Now, our stores are half-filled, but the winters are long. My shamans consulted with the star-charts deep below the ground, and with the night sky.

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