Page 45 of The Orc Chief's Baker
“What do you think, Plog?” Jolin asked the equally serine orc on his left. “Do you think two body lengths would be far enough to skewer them through?”
“I think we’d better go with three, Jolin,” Bolsan, an elderly orc with dark gray hair and a square jaw, interrupted with a voice as low as the goblin mines. At least it held some hard inflection when he so brutally began to describe their murderous intentions. “Three would ensure that they couldn’t hoist themselves back up off the things and pounce out.”
“True. But it will take much longer to dig,” Jolin replied, lacing his long, wrinkled fingers together on the wood tabletop. A light evening breeze fluttered in to rustle the elderly man’s thin greenish-gray hair. “Would be terribly hard work. Much conjuring would be needed.”
“We could get the sons to do it,” Plog said with a firm nod. He was the last of the three elders and his exuberant, boisterous nature would lead one to believe he was significantly younger than he was. “They need practice with their magic, anyway.”
“They could even compete!” Jolin pronounced with a grin. “What fun they would have, seeing whose spear would best skewer through the beast’s hard hide!”
Brovdir’s stomach churned with nausea over the ghastly image these elderly orcs were painting. Were they really going to get the orcchildrento helpmurderorc warriors? Males who were coming here by order of the Fades themselves?
“What if we put poison on them, too?” Plog tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “Might help them die quicker.”
Bolsan grumbled. “True, but then we wouldn’t be able to eat them.”
Eat them?His stomach churned threateningly. “No.”
All three of the elder orcs turned their full attention to Brovdir and his stomach lurched again at the thought of these malescookingandeatinghim.
He repeated vehemently. “No.”
Plog spoke up first. “No? No, what? Speak up warrior—er, I mean, Chief.”
“No pits,” Brovdir grated. He couldn’t even believe he was having to tell themnotto dig pit traps for the warriors to be skewered alive in.
There was a terse silence in which the elders narrowed their eyes and straightened their green and brown shirts, and Brovdirimagined them hoisting him up and throwing him into a pit of poisoned spikes.
“I don’t see how else we’re going to keep them out then,” Plog finally said tersely.
“Wedon’t.” He’d been talking far too much this day, and his throat was blistering. “Welet them in.”
Now the elders stared at him aghast, their wrinkled eyes wide, their mouths agape. Brovdir, desperate for some reprieve to the madness, turned his head up to look at the canopy of the Great Rove Tree. The balcony they were all seated upon was large and spacious with an incredible view that overlooked the clan. They were protected from the winter wind by the huge tree’s thick branches, covered in crystalline leaves which did not fall in the autumn. The glittering foliage above him was so perfect and reflective that he could see the dark blue of the dimming sky through it.
He wished Trinia was here to see it.
He jerked his gaze away from the view and pinched the bridge of his nose tight, but it did nothing to extinguish the sight of her in his mind’s eye. Her easy smile. Her thick body. Her soft lips that tasted so sweet and divine.
Fades, what waswrongwith him?
He needed to let her go. There was nothing he could do to win her now. He knew that.
And still the longing for her continued.
“You...wantthe boar to come in?” Jolin finally broke the silence.
Brovdir finally looked at the elders. “Boar?”
“Yes, the boar. The boar you said you wanted us to come up with a plan for? The thousands of boars that are going to descend upon these woods in the next few seasons.”
Sudden understanding slapped Brovdir right across the face and left him stinging. “Notboar.Warriors.”
The three elderly males blinked. “Oh . . . what?”
“Warriors,” Brovdir insisted again. “The warriororcs. I told you to come up with a way to take care of thewarriors.”
“Oh, goodness gravy.” Plog threw up his wrinkled hands. His two friends looked just as exasperated. “That’swhat you said. By Fades, I didn’t hear you properly. My hearing is not what it used to be, you know. I thought you’d said you wanted us to come up with a way to take care of theboar.”
Brovdir couldn’t decide if he wanted to strangle the males or burst into laughter.
