Page 61 of Halfling
By the time the wagon bounced into the homestead, dawn had begun to creep over the treetops. The sky was a clear, nearly colorless gray as light slowly began to filter into the world, but Sorcha barely saw as they careened into the barn.
Anghus hadn’t even thrown the break back before Sorcha was up, ready to help unload Orek.
“Take a breath,” Anghus told her. “Let’s not move him ’til we’re ready.”
Swallowing on a dry throat, she instead busied herself with the packs to give her shaky hands something to do. If she stood still too long, the nervous knot in her guts might pull tight enough to tear her in two.
Cara strode toward them from an empty stall. Dressed, with her hair pulled up and her sleeves rolled to her elbows, her calm, determined manner gave Sorcha a measure of comfort.
Peering over the wagon lip, Cara’s brows rose to behold the unconscious Orek.
“Well well,” said Cara, “haven’t seen one of them in a long while.”
“She says he saved her from another one,” Anghus told his wife as he hauled Orek’s pack out of the wagon. Sorcha followed him with her own into the empty stall, finding Cara had cleaned it and laid fresh hay.
“Two of them? This far north?” Cara made a considering hum. “He looks heavy.”
Sorcha begged, “Please, keep the coins I gave you and let him rest until he can move again. He’s lost so much blood and—”
Cara waved away her worrying. “You two aren’t going anywhere. He’s not in any state to threaten anyone, let alone stand, and you’re about to keel over. Now, let’s get him comfortable.”
Sorcha blinked, not knowing what else to say except, “Right.” Shehatednervously fluttering about, so riddled with worry and guilt that she’d nearly rendered herself useless.Sorchawas the calm one.Sorchawas the one who knew what to do. Yet now, her fear and exhaustion had drawn her so low, she let Cara and her calmness take charge.
She helped Cara make up a comfortable nest to lay Orek down, piles of sweet-smelling hay covered in his remaining blankets. She fetched the salve and what useful supplies they had between them, adding it to a little stockpile Cara brought from her house.
When everything was laid and ready, the three of them slid Orek from the wagon and, all groaning under his immense dead weight, shuffled slowly into the stall. The livestock watched on with interest as they struggled not to jostle him too badly, and by the time they eased him to the bed of hay, Sorcha’s whole body shook from the effort.
Cara wiped at her brow with the back of her hand. “And he’s a small one you said?”
As Anghus cut away Orek’s soiled shirt and soaked blanket, Sorcha took the bottle of poppy milk Cara passed her and worked some of it down his throat.
“Just a little bit,” she coaxed. “Swallow for me.”
He stirred at the sound of her voice, throat bobbing as he swallowed, but he never opened his eyes. A tense line drew between his brows, and his body held itself so rigidly, she couldn’t even pretend he was asleep. Sorcha soothed her thumb over the frown and crooned to him, assured him he was safe and he’d be all right. When that didn’t seem to work, she told him that she and Darrah were safe.
Finally, his muscles relaxed one by one, and he went completely limp in his nest of blankets and hay.
Sorcha glanced up to find Cara and Anghus watching her while passing significant looks between them.
“We’ll get this done quick and let him rest,” Cara assured her. “Why don’t you tell us how you came to be in our little part of the world with an orc companion.”
Thankful for the distraction, Sorcha wasn’t too proud to use it to avoid thinking too much about the work they had to do. She and Cara cleaned the wound, relieved to find clean edges and that the worst of the bleeding had stopped. Her hands still shook too much to stitch him up herself, and she was dizzy with relief when Anghus offered.
She held Orek steady, hands on his thick arm, as Anghus’s blunt fingers wove the needle and thread through Orek’s flesh. She couldn’t watch, saliva pooling in the back of her mouth, so she stroked Orek’s skin in soothing little circles and told them everything.
Her story poured out of her faster than the river rapids, barely pausing for breath between being captured by slavers and being freed by Orek. Cara nodded along sympathetically as if Sorcha made any sort of sense, eyes widening to hear about their midnight river crossing and frowning in displeasure to hear how the townsfolk of Birrin had treated her. Sorcha couldn’t stop, nearly made herself sick with how fast the words spilled out of her mouth, yet each one unburdened her.
By the time Anghus had finished the grisly work and moved on to the slice on Orek’s face, Sorcha had gotten them to that afternoon, when the orc tracker had ambushed her and Orek by the river.
“He was bigger and fast, but Orek held his own,” she told them, gazing down at her companion with pride. “I think he might’ve won, but I distracted him.”
“He’s the one who got fished out of the river. I’d call that winning,” quipped Cara.
Sorcha made a noncommittal noise; she wouldn’t soon forget the flash of the tracker’s knife before it plunged into Orek’s side.
A hand on her shoulder made Sorcha jump. She realized she’d been shivering, and Cara looked down at her with a concerned frown.
“I think it’s time for you both to rest.”
