Page 1 of The Orc's Stolen Shepherdess

Chapter One

Susara

“It’s fine. Everything isfine.”

The wind caused red oak leaves to rain down onto the moss-covered ground. The scent of crisp autumn foliage and the incoming chill tickled my nose. The soil beneath my feet was soggy and my leather boots were almost covered to the ankle in muck. The evening sunlight peeked in through the canopy, casting the world in a golden hue that was not nearly warm enough to dry out my damp clothes or warm my goosebump-covered arms.

And surrounding me, bleating like their lives were at risk, was my beautiful flock of sheep. Their clean wool was crisp, their dark eyes shined in the dim, and their stomachs grumbled.

Because their favorite grazing patch was now a pond.

“I don’t know how this happened either, Midnight,” I murmured as my most devoted ewe came to bleat at my side. The others milled about, bellowing at the water, at the rocks, at the sky. Obviously cursing the Fades who had made them and taken away their grass.

“We’ll find more.” I gave Midnight’s bushy black head a little pat. The ewe snorted as if she didn’t believe me. “I will! It’s not like the forest hasnograss. I’m certain if we walk around, we’ll find more. . . somewhere. . . Snowy, get away from the water! You’ll muddy your bandage.”

I rushed toward the injured sheep. With her bright white coat, one would never think she could get into mischief.

My knees were instantly soaked as I kneeled next to Snowy. She bleated in my face and her hot breath warmed my chilly cheeks. I lifted her hind leg and examined the tightly woven bandage around her flank. No bleeding. No signs of puss. She was just as hungry as she’d ever been.

“Get back over there,” I mumbled, giving her a gentle push toward the other three sheep who were now congregating as far from the pond as possible. “What’s the matter with you all? It’s just a little flooding.”

Odd flooding, though.We hadn’t had rain in half a moon, and this wasn’t a particularly low spot.

“So strange.” A sinking sensation washed through me as I got to my hands and knees and peered into the water. It shouldn’t be very deep. Right?

I was met with the sight of my reflection first. Chubby cheeks, freckles, hair the color of rotting straw. It even looked like straw with how dry it was.

Not that it mattered. It didn’t. I was a shepherdess! I spent all my time in the woods. And there had been so many oddities of late, it was a wonder I had time to sleep. If only the sheep would stop having odd mishaps like getting their legs stuck between rocks and slipping on nothing. And now their grazing patch had disappeared under a pool of water.

My father’s chiding tone firmed in my mind.“The woods are too dangerous for you. You need to choose a partner.”

A partner. I knew which one he meant. My father wanted me to pick Jophel, a greasy, arrogant man who just did not want to takenofor an answer. I’d rather eat my thumbs than tie myself to him.

But he was also the only man who’d expressed any interest in takingover the flock.

I gritted my teeth with determination, yanked up the sleeve of my wool gown, and reached into the water, feeling around the bottom for the tender, bright green grass that I knew would be there.

My hand sunk andsunk.

All the way up past my elbow.

I snapped my hand out of the water and scrambled back. The sheep bleated and scurried at my sudden movements.

“It’s all right, Susara,” I said to myself, though my voice was filled with tension, and my eyes were huge on the pond before me. “It’s. . . everything isfine.”

But it wasn’t fine. It wasn’t fine at all.

I carefully got to my feet picking up my shepherd’s crook as I went. It was taller than I was, and the wood was strong. I clasped it tightly and tucked my thumb into the nook near the top that had been made by the constant rubbing of three generations. My grandfather, my father, now me. Nearly a hundred years as herders for Oakwall Village.

And I’d never heard of or seen anything like this pool of water.

I hesitantly moved to the edge of it again.

“Just stay back,” I said to my sheep. They went back to nibbling reluctantly at the few blackberry vines near the edge of the clearing and I dipped my stick into the water.

It went down. And down. Anddown.

Until my fingers nearly touched.

---