Chapter 13: Orcs
"Yum, I can't wait to crack open their bones, and suck out their marrow. That's my favorite part, Lorrey."
For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, that really isn't the best sentence to hear when waking up. To make matters worse, my feet are dead, and three large green creatures are dancing around a small fire. Nauseously, they're doing that on the ceiling.
Or I'm hanging upside down by my feet. Yeah, probably the later one.
My head feels like Zeus tried to play roller derby in it, and my eyes are bulging from having been down-side-up for too long. The ropes around my ankles and wrists have caused them to go numb.
"Angela," I whisper, hoping the ugly things won't be able to hear me while they talk about how they're going to cook us.
"I'm here," she says loudly enough to make me flinch. "Don't worry, they have terrible hearing."
I look at the creatures again, and a thought hits me. "Shouldn't they have turned to stone in the sunlight?"
"That's trolls that suffer from that curse. These are orcs. Somewhat smarter and not quite as ugly," she replies calmly, and I realize she must have a plan for getting us out of here.
"Naw, I prefer to suck out their marrow before cracking their bones," a different orc states. Smarter than Trolls? How dumb can trolls be?
"How are we going to get out of here?" I ask, hoping to be let in on it.
"They'll cook and eat you first," she tells me evenly, and I feel my stomach drop. "While their cooking you, I'll break free."
"What!?" I shout, before thinking better of it. She's going to abandon me? I know she's technically a demonic creature, but the pain she displayed over having killed someone in the past was real. How can she do this to me?
"Hey now," a gravelly voice shouts at us, grating on my ears, "What's with this chattah? We likes our food quiet."
"And delicious," another one pipes up jovially.
"Well, do you really know how to cook us?" I ask, stealing an idea from Tolkien.
"Tha' lil trick of delayin' us won' work, succubus," their apparent leader responds.
"Ha, Lorrey. You made a rhyme!" says the third Orc.
Okay, so apparently 'smarter' is a relative term for these creatures.
"Shaddup. Lanny, Is the fire ready yet?"
"I'm not a succubus!" I shout at the monster.
He spins back around and walks right up to me. I can smell his fetid breath, and have to fight to keep my gorge in.
"Ya smell like a succubus, you a succubus." He snorts, and his snot plasters my still naked body.
"Oi, what was dat?" Lanny asks. "Lumpy, go check It out."
Lumpy grumbles as he gets up, and starts heading out of the cave. Lorrey goes back to the fire, and backhands Lanny for no apparent reason.
"You were going to abandon me," I accuse Angela, this time quieter, as I try to turn and face her.
"Nonsense," she says, and I can tell her hands are free now, "I just needed you to distract them long enough for me to break free." She swings her slender torso up to start working on the knots around her ankles.
"What was it, Lumpy?" Lanny calls out in time to muffle Angela's drop to the ground. She waits in silence for a moment, then, "Lumpy?"
"Go check it out," Lorrey commands Lanny, and takes the poking-stick from the slightly smaller orc.
I watch in dreadful silence, as Angela creeps up behind the lead orc certain that at any moment the beast is going to turn and club her. She makes it to just behind the monster, when he starts sniffing the air, and then suddenly turns, swinging at the succubus. She blurs, and somehow gets out of the way of the glowing poker, before jumping onto Lorrey's back, and wrapping both arms around the creature's neck.
"Gerr off me!" the thing yells while trying to get Angela off it's back. Her arms barely make it around the monster's neck, and I wonder if she's even doing any good. With the noise the two are making, I'm afraid that the other two orcs are going to return at any moment.
I wish I could help, instead of hanging here useless. Wait, maybe I can. In my mind's eye, I conjure the image of an Amazon goddess. Very tall, bronze colored skin, golden hair flowing, a leopard's pelt her only clothing, and large arms, big enough to crush an orc's neck. Now this would be a wild fantasy, I think.
Opening my eyes and looking back to the two struggling supernatural creatures, I see a different woman now, finishing off the large orc. It only takes a couple more seconds, before I hear a very audible 'POP', and the thing's head rolls into the fire.
Maybe I made her arms too strong.
Angela, still in Amazon form, easily strolls over to me, and smiles at me through the gore covering her body. "This a fantasy of yours, huh?" she asks. She is easily tall enough to reach the bindings at my hands now.
"It is now," I tell her, glad to be safe. "Wait, what about the other two?"
Just then we can hear footsteps approaching the entrance to the cave.
Angela crouches, ready to defend us, and with my hands now free, I lift my torso enough to start working on the ties around my feet.
I land with a whump, forcing all the air from my lungs. I'm not as nimble as Angela is. I turn just in time to see a new creature enter the fray.
It's not who I expect to see.
"Brooke?" I yell out and am surprised to see her in pale-blue scale mail armor, and a wicked looking wavy sword covered in ichor in her hands. An odd long skirt, made of the same material as her torso armor, shimmers blue in the firelight, but seems to flow around her legs like water, widening towards the bottom.
"Stay back, Lyden," Angela shouts, pulling me up and behind her with ease, before crouching down, ready to attack. "She's here to kill you."
If ever I've heard anything more absurd, I don't remember it. Brooke has always looked after me. Honestly, I don't know if the gentle woman could even hurt a fly. . . . Of course, she is carrying a dangerous looking sword covered in blood.
"Brooke won't hurt me," I try to say a lot more confidently than I feel. Why are my friend's eyes sparkling with anger?
"She's an assassin, Lyden. I don't know what your relationship is with her, but I promise you, she's not what you think she is." The succubus sounds so confident that I really begin to doubt. It doesn't help that Brooke is still coming towards us, sword at the ready.
"Brooke, tell her you're no assassin," I call to the curly redhead.
"She's right, Lyden," Brooke's voice is filled with iron, and I feel my heart sink. "I am an assassin. Now step away from her."
"What?" I demand. "No!"
"Lyden, don't!" the Amazonian women screams, sensing what I'm about to do.
I super speed around Angela, planting myself between the two women, holding my hands out, a palm facing each of them. "I really don't understand what's happening, but Angela, if she'd wanted us dead, why did she kill the other two orcs?"
I see confusion blossom in the succubus's eyes at my words, but it's Brooke that speaks.
"Lyden, how did you move so fast?" I can tell that the question itself scares her.
"I don't know," I reply. "Something has changed in me, and we're going to ask someone if they know what it might be."
"You don't. . . . Wait! The only one in this direction that might have that kind of information would be TanaVesta, the Pillar of Fire. You can't seriously be taking him to her, succubus." The way she pronounces succubus is like an insult. "She'll kill him for sure!"
My mind is reeling right now. Brooke is an assassin? Why is she in that weird armor? She knows that Angela is a succubus? How did she even get here?
"I've already talked to her, and she's agreed to see him first," Angela shoots back.
"Figures one of your ilk would be on speaking terms with that monster. Did she promise you safe passage out afterwards?" Brooke seems to realize how dirty her blade is, as she takes a couple steps over to the headless corpse of the orc Angela had killed, and wipes her blade clean. Her eyes never leave the succubus.
Angela doesn't speak, but she does relax her stance.
"Lyden," Brooke continues, her sea-green eyes now resting on me, "did she tell you about who she's taking you to? Did she explain what kind of creature TanaVesta is?"
"Angela told me she's a dragon," I reply cautiously.
"Ha," Brooke laughs. "Did she also tell you that she is one of the pillars of this world? Or that her slightest whim is law here?"
"I didn't want to scare him any more than needs be," Angela pipes up defensively. I stare at the succubus, unsure of what Brooke is talking about, but not liking the sound of things.
"You mean you didn't want him to be prepared for what you have in store for him," the armored woman shouts back.
"I don't mean him any harm," Angela screams, and I can see tears of frustration in her eyes.
"Stop it, both of you!" I yell, trying to get their attention. I turn to the redhead first, "Brooke, I don't know what your beef is with Angela, but she's done nothing but help me heal and recover since she met me." Not entirely true, but close enough for now. "And Angela, Brooke has been my friend since she saved my life when my parents died. If she'd wanted me dead, there've been plenty of opportunities to do so."
Something lands at my feet, and I look down to see my clothes.
"Well, you might as well cover up that bat between your legs, then," Brooke says to me, not quite smiling.
In all of the commotion, I had completely forgotten that I'm still naked. I feel my cheeks burning, as I rush to put on my clothes, but I warily watch both women as I do so. This is the first time I've ever been naked in front of Brooke.
The armored woman sheaths her sword, but still looks like she's ready to do battle at any moment. "So, you think he's becoming an incubus?" she asks Angela.
"No. Something's not right about that," the succubus replies, and I realize that an incubus must be a male version of a succubus. Apparently the orcs didn't know that either. "So you were there when his parents died, huh?"
I immediately know what she's getting at, and feel my anger rising again. "Stop it," I repeat myself. "Brooke had nothing to do with my parent's death. She found me two days afterwards."
Angela nods, but whether in acceptance or something else, I'm not sure. "Are you going to stop us from going?" she asks instead.
"Is this what you want, Lyden?" the redhead turns to ask me. "There must be other ways to find the answers you want." For some reason I can see worry, hurt, and pain in her green eyes, and I want to comfort her, but the blue armor and the knowledge that she's some kind of supernatural assassin stops me.
"I need to know, and I trust Angela," I tell her.
"But she's a succubus," Brooke shoots back. When I don't comment, she says, "I'll escort you to the dragon's borders, but I can't go beyond that."
"You're not invited," Angela states, and I turn to give her a look. "She's an assassin," she says in her defense. I'm no more moved by her argument than I had been about Brooke's, and she drops her head in submission. "Fine, but I'm keeping an eye on her."
"Good," I say, as I finally finish getting dressed. "Both of you can keep an eye on the other, and I'll feel that much safer." I meant it as a joke, but as the words leave my mouth I realize it was a very poor one, by the pain I see in both sets of eyes.
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