Page 24 of Halfling
Their footfalls became thunderous as silence stretched again between them. Somehow it was worse than before, her desperation to fill it nearly overwhelming, but she held her errant tongue.
They continued on like that for an agonizing while, long enough that she was sure he wouldn’t speak, perhaps wouldn’t say anything to her ever again.
His sudden reply startled her so much she nearly missed his response.
“My mother was like you.” His voice was thick, as if the words were dredged from a deep place in his chest and caused him pain.
Sorcha’s heart squeezed, hating to see his clear upset.
They’d walked for another few moments before his words finally registered in her mind.
My mother was like you.
Human.
His mother was human. He was only half-orc.
A halfling.
Her mouth fell open in astonishment. There were stories about halflings, half-human and half-other. Some of the oldest tales spoke of how harpies and humans had created a race of winged people, so like humans but with wings more massive than even an orc. She’d heard whispers of other half-orcs, as well as dragons and manticores that used their magic to take more human forms in order to take human mates. There had even been stories of half-fae, when the ethereal beings had still roamed the kingdom.
She’d thought the stories more fancy than anything else; it’d been many years since any of the other races lived in the human kingdoms after the bloody war of succession dragged the human realms into chaos thirty years ago. She’d once spotted a flock of harpies flying over the capital of Gleanná when she visited with her father and Lord Darrow, her father’s liege lord. And she was sure she’d spied the glitter of siren scales once on a visit to the northern sea. Other than that, and of course her plentiful experience now with orcs, she had little knowledge of other races and had assumed such was the case for most other humans.
But then, she’d spent most of her life on her mother’s estate, within the borders of the Darrowlands.
Her cheeks burned again, wondering if she seemed as naïve to Orek as she felt then.
The silence continued, giving her more time to chew on his words. And the more she thought on them, the tighter the knot in her guts cinched.
Orek’s mother had been like her, human. But she didn’t think that was the reason for the pain in his voice as he told her.
Like me.
Captured? Sold?
Bile burned her throat, and she turned her shocked gaze to the back of Orek’s head. If he noticed her sudden horror, he didn’t show it. He strode confidently through the forest, his rope of braided mane swishing over the mountainous pack he hauled.
Sorcha pinched her lips together, troubled by the realization.
Was his mother captured and sold to the orcs?
What happened to her?
The pain in Orek’s voice echoed in her mind, and she shuddered. Perhaps she didn’t want to know.
Whatever her fate, this would explain why he’d helped Sorcha. She’d tried to find a way of asking him gently, needing to make sense of it herself.
A sharp, sad little cry snapped her to attention. In front of her, Orek came to a halt, pointed ears perking at the sound.
Another little wail echoed through the trees, and Sorcha’s heart clenched again. There was no mistaking the sound of a baby animal in distress.
Its cries wrenched at her, but she was surprised when Orek started in a new direction, following the sound. She jogged to keep up, the cries growing louder as they approached.
Around the next tree, they found a little grizzled gray body wriggling on the forest floor not far from a sprawling oak tree. Orek made a sound in his throat, not a grunt or huff, something softer.
She watched him in surprise as he carefully approached the little thing.
“It’s a raccoon kit,” he said.
