Another cliff hanger. I'm sorry I don't have time to say much tonight or respond to reviews.
When you woke, the first thing you heard was Father's voice. And he sounded angry. Father was rarely angry, he simply did not get angry about things. You were sure you could count the times you'd seen him angry in your life on your fingers. You were still in the cart, you found, and the sun was setting now, the sky darkening above you. You shivered, both from the fact that you were still in only your underthings and the fear that had re-established itself firmly within you. Father was a ways behind the cart, you could hear him saying something in a harsh tone but you couldn't make out what exactly he was saying. You pulled a blanket about yourself and sat up to peer over the back of the cart.
The sight that met you was startling. There was Father, Mother standing just behind him, talking to the orcish boy from the lake. The boy looked tired, a grimey layer of sweat across his bare skin. He wore only pants and a pair of worn boots, you noticed, and ripped pants at that. The bottoms of both the legs were frayed and torn almost all the way to his knees, and the boots had holes in the toes. He still clutched the hatchet in his right hand, but not threateningly, almost as if he forgot he was holding it, or as if it were a part of him. His long hair was matted, the braids halfway undone and terribly tangled, and his chest was covered in scratches and bruises. The same went for his face, especially around his left eye where it looked like he'd been punched.
You couldn't help but feel terrible for him, especially with that hopeless, desperate expression on his face. His eyes were near empty, void of feeling, as if he were trying to numb away Father's attempts to make him go.
You could hear now what Father was saying.
"Go!" He shouted, waving his hands off in the direction of the road behind them. "You cannot come with us, stop following!" If the orc understood, he did not show it. He merely stood there, head bowed, shoulders slumped out of exhaustion, tired right hand looking as if it might drop that hatchet.
Mother stepped in. She placed a hand on Father's shoulder. "He is no threat," She said. "He has been walking behind us for hours and done nothing. Besides, look at him, he is in shambles. Let us continue so that we may get to Auchindoun by tomorrow morning at least."
Father sighed and seemed to think about this for a moment. "You are right," He finally said, starting toward the cart. He turned toward where the orc still stood on the road. "I will alert someone at Auchindoun about this... Problem... We have acquired."
At this you jumped up from your spot in the cart, pulling a blanket about yourself for modesty. "What? Father, you promised you would not hurt him." You ran to him, but Father said nothing. "You promised." He shrugged your hands off his arm.
"Get in the cart, my daughter. We are running late as it is."
You listened, dismayed, and climbed back into the cart. The rest of the evening you spent in a state of worry, silently angry and hurt over Father's possible betrayal that could come to pass tomorrow morning. You watched the orc linger behind the cart a ways, walking just off the road in the trees. Every so often, when you were sure Father and Mother were not looking, you would lightly toss something out of the cart for the orc to find. A water skin, then a little bag of dried fruit slices, more water, some dried and spiced meat. You watched with careful glances, to see if he picked him up. Every time you dropped something out of the cart, that same expression of surprise and gratitude would come over him, as if he couldn't believe you were helping him. He still seemed empty though, lost, as he dragged himself along behind the cart.
You all had to stop eventually. You camped closed to the road this night, just off behind the first layer of forest. Father seemed stressed as he set up the tents, Mother helped in silence. You weren't sure what to do or say, so you unloaded the beds and benches and dug up a little pit for the fire. Hardly anyone spoke as you ate dinner, except Father.
"I thought we had five waterskins left... Why are there only three?" He asked. It took every last shred of your willpower to just shrug in reply to that question. You'd only ever lied to Father once before. You came home with mud all over your hooves. It hadn't rained that day, or the day before, and you were supposed to have been with friends. Yet here you were, late for evening prayers, covered in mud. You had been in the marsh for half that time that you were supposed to have been playing with friends. You told father you took a shortcut home through the fields, but he could see everything through those guilty eyes of yours. You were caught, and made to help Mother with the spice gardens for two weeks every day after your lessons. You hated working in the spice gardens, it made you smell even more like spices and you didn't get to spend as much time in your own garden or actually playing with your friends. You never lied again, and you made sure not to get caught going to the marshes anymore.
You sat there practically shaking after that question, yet neither of your parents seemed to notice anything. As you ate you kept glancing into the forest, eyes scanning for any sign of the orc. At first there seemed to be nothing beyond the warm light of your family's fire, but then you saw it, the light glinting off of the orc's hatchet as he shifted his sitting position. He was resting against one of the giant twisting trees, one of Father's "missing" waterskins in his left hand. You could see him more clearly now, he seemed to be inspecting the embroidered pouch sheltering and insulating the skin, his gold eyes scanning over each stitch of purple thread that made up the design. A slight smile came to you. Always orcs had seemed fearsome, even when they were just the Shadowmoon orcs who mostly kept to themselves, preferring the magics and blessings of the stars about them and their ancestors over the company of others. Yet with this boy... It was different.
Father's voice sent ripples across your still pool of thoughts. He gathered you and Mother close for prayers. This night you truly had something pray for, or rather someone. You prayed for many things. That Father would not betray his promise, that the orc would find someone to help him, someone to take him home... If he even had a home to go back to... Did you even have a home to go back to now? You wondered just how serious this war was, or just how much things might be changing back in Shadowmoon Valley. Your heart longed for home at that moment, it seemed to do so more and more during the last few days.
But you neglected to pray for one thing that night; For the blessing of safety against that war that so plagued your mind.