Page 2 of Halfling
Orek avoided Krul whenever he could—there was something dark and…empty about the male’s eyes.
“I’m not staying to see what happens.” Orla stood and marched for the back of the tent.
Challenges for leadership in orc clans weren’t always to the death, but they often were. If the challenger was victorious, not only were they clan chief, everything that had been their rival’s was now theirs.
Orek shuddered to think of what a male like Krul could do to his small mother.
He hurried to follow her. “Where are we—?”
She stopped so suddenly that Orek ran right into her back.
Orla turned to peer at him sternly. He was a little taller than her now, though the look she gave him made him suddenly feel very small.
“You’re staying here.”
Everything in him went cold. “Mama…”
“I—humans won’t accept you. You look too much like your father.” Her mouth hardened into a line, her gazing cutting away like she couldn’t look at him any longer. “There’s nowhere for you other than this clan. Stay and become a hunter. Be faster and smarter than the rest and you’ll survive.”
“But I want to be with you.” She was the only one he truly cared for in the camp.
“I can’t take you.” Orla adjusted the straps of her pack, still not looking at him. “It’s for the best, Orek. You’ll understand one day.”
Arguments clogged his throat, but nothing came out before Orla slipped from the tent. Tears stung his eyes, and after a moment of wretchedness that made him want to hurl up his dinner, he followed her outside.
He kept back, walking in a daze as he watched her creep along the outskirts of camp. She kept to the deepest shadows, a trick she’d taught him, and soon, she disappeared into a crevice between the tall boulders that ringed camp. Outside was a warren of craggy hills and barren rocks sloping down into a dark, ancient forest.
She didn’t appear again.
Orek stared at the spot where she’d disappeared for a long while, tears tracking down his face into his mouth. His vision blurred with them, and the salt burned his tongue.
He sniffed, pawing at his face, knowing he couldn’t be seen crying.
But the tears kept coming, and he sobbed, “Mama…mama…” again and again, as if that would summon her back, as if he could make her change her mind and take him, too.
The idea of returning to the tent alone, to find it empty, shattered something inside him. His chest cracked down the middle, a rush of anger and despair flooding inside. What would he tell his father? How could she leave him here to take the beating he’d get for not being able to say where she was?
How can she leave me?
“Where’s your mother, runt?”
Orek jumped at the orcish voice, scurrying back as he swiped at his tears. He looked up, and up, into the savage face of Krul. The male was the biggest Orek had ever seen, with shoulders wider than a boulder and legs like tree trunks. His hands were huge and scarred, and many stories were told of how Krul could crush a human’s head in one fist.
Worst were the eyes, crimson red and calculating, set deep in that harshly hewn face.
Orek gulped, fingers going cold.
Shouldn’t have let him sneak up on me. Stupid, stupid.
“In our tent,” he forced himself to say.
Krul’s nostrils flared. “Both of you stay there until you’re called.” And his huge hand pressed against Orek’s head to shove him in the direction of his father’s tent.
“Y-yes, sir.” Heart hammering in his chest, Orek hurried away, disappearing within the maze of tents. He didn’t stop until he ducked under the tent flap and buried himself in his blankets.
Alone, in the darkness, he lay shaking with fear.
He hugged the coat Orla had left to his chest, smelling her familiar scent. Even as the noises outside the tent grew loud and violent as the night wore on, he couldn’t stop himself from crying into his mother’s coat. He didn’t hear the fight happening outside over his tears and didn’t really care, either. Not when it felt like a hole had opened in the earth, sucking him down into a sticky pit of sorrow.
