Page 15 of Alien Orc Warlord's Captive Bride

Last night was an ecstasy stolen. I can still remember her taste on my tongue, and I have to suppress a growl as my cock surges up again, demanding to be inside of her. I stalk out of my home, closing the door softly behind me.

I take a hallway, then perfectly carved stairs down deeper into the cave system that was bored out so many millennia ago, when my species had great technologies, lost in the eons. The stone floor is smooth and polished. Torches lining the walls give off a low light, illuminating my path downwards, deeper into the cave systems. It would take me centuries with my blade to bore a rough room into the mountainside, but somehow, my species was able to create this fortress, beautiful yet secure.

Where did we come from?

It matters not. All that matters is that we endure.

Guards bow their heads in respect as I go into the cells. The soldier is sitting with his head in his hands on a wooden bench, his food untouched. His tunic is sweat-soaked. The eyes that are the insignia of his master look pitiful, crumpled and worn.

Last night I thought I would have to kill him. I would have swung, taking his head off, not in anger, but in the cold, merciless sense of duty, that a threat to my people must be ended. Aira gave me another choice. A smarter choice. Her mind is quick, even under pressure, and I wish I could have her by my side, helping me strategize and negotiate with the humans so that we could avoid this war.

"You will go to Lord Ashbourne's castle today. You will have an escort of guards."

"Please, not that one who wants to kill me," he begs, and I grit my teeth. Gorak was always loyal to me, but his hatred for humanity is causing him to act rashly.

"Not him. You will relay my demands exactly. We will return his bride-to-be, untouched and unharmed, in return for twenty head of cattle, four hundred caloric rations, and a ton of smoked fish."

"Okay. I've got it."

I lick my fangs as I think. "What do you predict his reaction to be?"

"I...I just follow orders and..."

"Answer me."

He gulps. "I think he would do anything to get his property back, but a war would be more costly than a negotiation. He doesn't like waste. The king only sent a dozen troops...but he sent guns, ammo, and these...these black birds, I don't know their function."

"Black birds? What is this magic you speak of?"

"I don't know what else to call them. They are the size of a man, these black triangular things. But I saw one flying above, as if under the control of the king's men."

More bad news. We already have to fight skirmishes and guerrilla battles, and if those things can report back our movements, it would be worth a hundred scouts. Did the king have his scientists create these new weapons—or were they from long ago, hidden away and valuable? If so, he won’t risk them easily.

I’ll start training a counter-defense force today. Orcs with rifles, posted at high vantage points, the best shooters. They will practice on the hunting hawks and eagles that circle the mountains. Proud birds, and such a waste to be killed, but it is the only way. Their flesh is stringy and chewy, but we will not waste their bodies.

"You will be the one to return with his answer, within three days. If any other soldier or scout comes, I will consider the offer ended, and she will be my property. Tell your Lord that we have trained with your rifles. We are not the Orcs he used to battle against. For every one of us he kills, he'll lose ten. Make him believe it."

"He'll believe it. Thank you, Chieftain Ragnar, for sparing me."

"Thank the bride-to-be." I grunt, about to leave, but I can't help myself. "How will he treat her?"

He swallows. "Well."

"Don't lie to me."

He takes in a big, shaking breath, his eyes darting to the left. "Okay. I...he sometimes has servant girls brought up to his bed...he gets me to stand guard and..." He plants his eyes downward. "They come back shaking, and they don't make eye contact. That man has a darkness to him. But a wife is unlike a serving girl. He'll view her like a prized trophy. I think, I really believe, she'll be well-treated."

"She is the one who spared your life. Remember that, when she is in the castle," I say, and open the bars to his cell. Then I bark the order to the guards to get a group of three trusted Orcs to escort him out of our mountains.

Then I walk down, deeper, past our armory, to our cellars. It is a high-ceilinged room, and the sweet smell of smoked fish, bathed in honey to preserve it, greets me. Half filled. Three falls ago, there would be carcasses of elk hanging, their meat drying, to keep us strong through the winter.

I think of Aira, cold and scared in the cruel Lord's bed, and I grit my teeth. We have always hunted, but I have watched how humans tend to their herds. With twenty head of cattle, we can breed more. We can drink of their milk, while the caloric, high-density rations and the ton of fish supplement us enough to last the winter without slaughtering any of our new herd.

I will secure the future of my tribe...

But I will lose my own.

I grip the hilt of my blade as I realize the horrible truth.

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