Page 9 of Shackled to the Orc

With a grunt, he shifts away from me and looks away.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, when we turn a bend and I see the smoke curling from houses of my village. A knot of emotions tightens in my chest. The village is a well-worn storybook of memories, a beacon of safety, familiar warmth that feels like it is a thousand miles away even as the wagon goes up the main street. I grew up here, lived my life, learned in the little schoolhouse with twenty other children. I can hear the gurgle of the stream where I learned to swim, my mom always warning me not to go after a rainfall. The huge oak tree where I had my first kiss, with Mathew, the little boy with clever brown eyes who became a blacksmith and moved to Corwinhold for work.

A scream pierces the silent night. My best friend, Zephyr, in her night robe, runs after the wagon, but the driver whips the horses onward. I can’t look back. I want to, to get one last glance of my home, but I know it is fading away behind us, and it’s too painful. My eyes get wet, tears filling them, spilling out and dripping down my cheeks.

The orc slowly, gently, raises his left arm, my right going up with it, so I can grab the blanket and wipe my eyes.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice strained, frayed by grief.

“Your village.” It is a statement, his voice low and rumbling, and I wonder how long it has been since he saw his northern mountain home.

“Yes.” I take in a deep, racking breath, and dry my eyes, lowering my hand with his. There’s this gnawing at my heart. Even if by some miracle I escape, I can never come back.

I am nothing but a slave now. Property. The pitmaster Shug knows where I came from. I can never go home, or I would be snatched up, and anyone who shielded me would be sold into slavery, guilty of theft.

When they catch you after the first escape attempt, they brand you, so that there is nowhere you can hide, so that anyone who sees you can turn you in for a bounty. I would be hunted for the rest of my life.

The orc raises his arm, and looks over at me, and gently pats my knee, then brings his hand back down between us.

The rhythmic clop of horses’ hooves and the wheels against the packed earth is all we hear as we are taken north, no one talking, the aura of fear and uncertainty gripping us all, until I smell the chemical stink of Corwinhold. The huge, grey walls rise up in front of us, and thick smoke billows, the city alive even in the dead of night, working around the clock to provide for the king. Some villagers go to the city to work for yearlong contracts, coming back worn down, usually with a persistent, dry cough. I boil mullen-weed and have them lean over it with a towel over their head, and it gives them relief, but most will have the cough for life.

Some come home missing fingers, hands, or toes. It’s better pay than working on a farm, but there’s a cost to it.

There is a crossroads ahead, and instead of going towards the walls of the city, the driver turns right, the horses already turning without being told. His home must be out of the city. The wealthy live on the outskirts, where the air is fresher. We travel past the city, and huge homes spread out, many with vineries and fields of crops. The clang of metal on metal slowly fades as the homes get bigger, the estates more sprawling, the road thinning. We turn onto a winding path, and the pitmaster’s home comes into view. Tall walls surround it, and two guards open the massive iron gates to let us in.

On a hill, there is a mansion, with towering pillars, overlooking a lowered training ground with dummies and sand. Gigantic columns rise like sentinels, and there are guards peering out watchfully from the second story of his home, crossbows in their hands. Everything looks eerie in the light of the moons, bathed unnaturally, the shadows long and spreading out in different directions.

We stop by the training pit. It is a huge, sunken arena, with weathered walls. Four guards, one carrying a flickering torch, greet us. The pitmaster stays seated, watching us as the guards open the back of the prison wagon. Thankfully, they undo my cuffs, and I rub my wrist, stepping onto solid ground, covering myself as best I can with the horse blanket. They undo the orc from the bars, but cuff him again behind his back. They know how dangerous he is.

“All of you. Go with Khan,” says the pitmaster, motioning to the three terrified women.

“No. Just her,” growls the orc. Khan. That is what the pitmaster called him, when he tried to get him to heel in the auction. It is a cruel name, a name for a leader, a mockery of him.

“I spent a pretty fucking penny for that last-minute pick. You caused a real scene, Khan.”

“I did not pick these three. I do not want them.”

The pitmaster gets a foul look in his eyes. Khan’s arms are cuffed behind his back, but the guards still reach for their swords, wary around the beast, as if he could explode at any moment into awe-inspiring violence. There’s this dynamic between them that is different than slaver and master, not exactly respect, something I can’t place.

Shug looks at me, then the three women, shivering despite their cloaks, and I want to yell at him to get them inside while he debates their fate. I’d get the whip for defiance. In my village, people listen to me when I speak. They didn’t, a year ago, but now they come to me at their lowest points, and they rely on me to get them better.

Here, I’m nothing but a piece of meat, whose purpose is to shut up, do what I’m told…

And obey the pitmaster’s prizefighter.

“They are strong. Kitchen work. Gardening. Make use of them.”

“Fine. Don’t let her wear you out too much, Khan. You’ve got a fight in three days.”

Khan starts walking without a word. Where I wouldn’t have dared make a suggestion, he told the pitmaster what to do…

And Shug acquiesced.

I follow along, treading carefully, bare feet on the packed earth, avoiding pebbles as I jog to keep up with his long strides towards the training arena. Squat buildings are connected by stone hallways, the gladiators kept in a contained, functional area that contrasts against the grand, inviting mansion, which has huge balconies overlooking the training pit itself so that Shug can watch from the comfort of his home. There is an archway, worn with time, with two huge wooden doors, barred from the outside. The red-bearded guard grunts, lifting the wooden bar, and opens the doors.

We walk into the cool, stone building. There is another set of metal doors. Shug doesn’t take any chances with his gladiators. He respects their power. Behind us, the door is closed with a heavy thud and the bar is put back in place as the red-bearded guard takes a set of keys out and opens the internal metal door. Khan walks through, cocking his head at me to follow.

Then the metal doors are closed, and he stands next to the bars, his hands behind his back, as the red-bearded guard unlocks them in practiced movements, lifting the shackles, and carries them back to the door, where he knocks. Before it is opened, a sliding panel is pulled open in the door, so that the guard outside can look in and make sure the gladiators are firmly trapped behind the metal door. The entire area is locked down, the gladiator section a series of squat buildings that surround the training area.

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