Page 7 of Sacrificed to the Orc

“I just need a walking stick,” I say, but he shakes his head, his black mane cascading.

“Sit. There,” he says, pointing to a thick root. I sit down, heavily, glad to be off my injured foot, even for a moment. I steel myself for what happens now. He’ll throw me over his shoulder like a sack of flour, bouncing me as I am carried helplessly to my fate.

He moves like a jungle cat towards me, his sinewy muscles rippling with the movements.

He crouches in front of me, and I tense up, waiting for him to grab me and throw me over his shoulder. Instead, he reaches forward, gently raising my injured foot, undoing the laces of my boot. He gently pulls, and I reach down, helping him get it off. My sock is sodden, and in the winter air, I start to shiver. He slides my damp pantleg upwards, his huge fingers grazing against my naked skin, and pulls my sock off.

My ankle is already swelling, tinged purple where it’s going to bruise. He gently rests my foot on a root and opens his satchel, pulling out a small kit from within, well made in leather that speaks of artisanal skill I did not know the orcs possessed…

Unless he looted it from a human he killed.

First he gets out a pouch of dried blue leaves. “Eat this,” he says, extending a leaf towards my mouth.

“What is it?”

“Dried blue lotus leaf. It must be taken as soon as possible after an injury.”

I sniff it warily and look up at him, untrusting. He could be knocking me out. I know I’m going to a horrible fate, but I don’t want to wake up with knives to my throat. I pull away, but he easily grabs me, gently yet firmly opening my mouth and forcing it in. The look in his eyes stops me from spitting it out.

I chew. It has almost no taste, and he gives me his flask to wash it down with water.

Next he mixes water in with a white paste and rubs it gently over my ankle, making me wince when he touches my skin. “Stay still,” he orders, but there is a softness to his order.

He wraps my ankle in a white cloth, tight, keeping the poultice pressed against the swelling. “How is the pain?” he asks, his green eyes flitting upwards from my ankle.

“I’m fine,” I say, gritting my teeth at the dull throb.

He gets a root from the kit and uses a small knife to cut a piece off. I recognize it. Stillroot, like what my grandma gave me when I had a toothache as a kid. “Chew this,” he orders, and I take it, because otherwise he’s just going to force it into my mouth and make me swallow.

I watch as the knife disappears back into the satchel. Small, sharp, and if I use it while he is asleep…

But I can just imagine his burning green eyes opening, his hand gripping my wrist before I can strike, and what he would do to me next.

He pulls out a long woolen sock from his satchel, knitted together with fine handiwork, and pulls it tenderly over my foot. It goes up nearly to my knee, he’s so much bigger than me, and it is loose. “Put your boot on.”

I pull my boot on, lacing it, and he stands to his full height, towering above me, a behemoth of a man. He shrugs off his heavy fur coat and drapes it over my body, then stands shirtless, in nothing but a black loincloth. His chest is covered in black runes, mirrored images of each other written on each side, in black ink like oil.

He leans down and grabs me, lifting me carefully, as though I am a delicate piece of art, cradling me with his arms. I’ve got no choice but to wrap my arms around his thick neck, staring out into the thick forest.

It feels like he is lifting me from a burning building.

Instead, he will cradle me to my death.

Askan strides forward at a slower pace, choosing his steps carefully to avoid jostling me, his leather bag balanced over his shoulder, his war-axe bouncing at his belt, carrying me as if I am weightless. He marches without complaint as the trees grow thinner and sparser, until we leave the cover of the forest, the biting wind hitting us like a slap.

I am wrapped up tight in his thick fur coat, but he is nearly naked, bearing the brunt of the gale as if he does not feel the cold, his breath steaming out as he drives himself forward.

I turn my gaze to see where we are headed. Rocky plains, coated in fresh powdery snow, nothing moving except a few stalks of hardy plants fighting out of the snow, that whip back and forth in the wind. Past the tundra looms the jutting mountains, forbidding snow-covered peaks where I can’t imagine anything lives.

His home, in the ice and rock, scraping out an existence by sheer will alone.

The gust lifts the layer of snow, throwing it at us, and I nestle myself deeper into the warmth of the blanket, pressed against his powerful chest. Sweat drips from his neck down his body as he presses onward, his breathing growing heavy and rhythmic with exertion.

“Where is your home?” I whisper, not understanding how anyone can leave on the sheer peaks.

“Past the first mountain range. Your people drove us back. These plains used to be filled with game,” he answers, striding forward steadily.

“How many are you?”

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