4

"I'll defer to your judgement, Barbaurak," the words, though spoken with uncharacteristic favor, grated on the ears like metal scraping across stone.

It was met by a few, very quiet grumbles of displeasure from among the crew.

The speaker, Razmat, creaked with every movement he made; metallic prosthesis replaced three of his four limbs, and they hissed with curious technological advancements that would have been the envy of this backwater village on the southern fringe of the sea of Nurn, all the way to the furthest peaks of the Gray Mountains. Even the dwarves would be jealous of such a marvel of a clockwork body. Razmat would know; it was just such a dwarf slave that had designed the mechanisms that augmented his originally squat, orcish stature into something that rivaled the great uruk warriors. A cascade of interlocking metal segments trailed up his spine, pistons jut and retracted at his joints, a helm of iron plating embedded in his head, all made him one with the machine. Orc and metal fused in such perfect artistry would be the way of the future.

The now tall, imposing orc, stood back among his griping underlings, all leering down at the Khandian man prostrate before them, with his dark face coated with the sandy dust it was now pressed against.

"I know you won't disappoint me," Razmat clamped his forge-iron hand on Barbaurak's shoulder and squeezed until the razor-sharp claws were threatening to puncture his skin.

"Aye, Captain..." Barbaurak muttered and grabbed the Khandian man roughly by the neck-high collar of his silk jacket. "The shara an' I are gonna take a lil scout around. Juss ta make sure there ain't any snaga buggerin' about under the floor boards. On yer feet, scum."

"Unhand me, you filthy sea rat!" The man, a porkishly fat specimen with an equally porkish demeanor, squealed in protest at being so roughly handled. His dark complexion reddened with exertion as he swatted a hand at Barbaurak while simultaneously swinging his bulk back and forth to get to his feet. Sweat pooled in the divot of a vein thickening on his forehead, taking with it some of the gold leaf painted in gaudy patterns on his face when it finally overflowed the tiny dam.

"Keep waggin' that tongue," a knife appeared in front of the Khandian man's sparse, white mustache. Barbaurak was not here to play games. Every orc present could smell the nerves rolling off the human. It was the scent of fear, not for his life, no. The fear of discovery; he was hiding something. "I'll gladly take IT and wha'ever else yer not tellin' the Captain about."

The man's broad cheeks puckered to form a placating frown, gesturing to the line of slaves being marched down towards the village docks by an escort of orcs, "I can assure you that is all we have for tribute this season—"

"Shuddup. I'm sure yer aware it's rude to not invite yer guests over fer a proper welcome. Let's go make sure everythin's in order fer the Captain, eh? Startin' with yer place..." Barbaurak dealt the man a swift kick, making him squeal and howl before sending him scampering, as fast as his fat, little legs would carry him, up the path of the village towards the walled abode that rose above it all, following closely behind.

A few other Khandian men stood alert and on guard nearby, but none moved a muscle to help their leader; the meeting had not gone poorly just yet. Minor abuses were an expected part in their dealings with orcs — a far more tolerable experience than the fate of the slaves being granted in tribute — the village men would grit their teeth and bear it and they expected the village chief to do the same. The seasonal return of the orcs coming to collect was an inevitable equalizer, where even the leader was no greater than a rug to be trodden underfoot.

The Khandians' greatest hope — that things would remain civil — was as palpable as the hot air of the desert evening, but like a shimmer on the horizon, they were not fool enough to believe the mirage of peace between themselves and their visitors. This was not an alliance of goodwill, but rather one of necessity and greed. A single ill-considered word could tip the delicately held balance and throw everything into chaos. Though the orcs may not have outnumbered the human men, the men had a lot more to lose presently. They were not permitted weaponry when the orcs came to call. A single blade found on any villager could be a death sentence for everyone. Such were the peaceful relations to be had with the servants of the Eye.

Following the fat village leader, Barbaurak's keen senses honed in on the clay and stone buildings these human men called home, lining the dirt thoroughfare, noting the silence and emptiness within; no doubt evacuated of the Khandian's more delicate village members. Only the males of the menfolk stayed in the settlement, like being caged with a beast, until the orcs departed. It was safer to risk retreating to the wild, inhospitable wastes along the pass leading to Khand proper through Mordor's southern mountain range than it was to expose their women and children to the unpredictable whims of their orcish subjugators.

So then, Barbaurak wondered upon entering the fat, little village chief's gratuitously lavish home, why he could detect someone who didn't fit that qualification. Among the stucco walls of the inner courtyard, glass-tile mosaic flooring depicting some abstract image Barbaurak couldn't quite make sense of, and the water features that burbled down faux streambeds, his orcish sense of smell immediately picked out the sharp scent of a spice that reminded him of fire, mingled with a foreign, feminine air.

Barbaurak's eyes sought the woman who appeared at the archway entrance to a different section of the house before she even spoke. She was swathed in black silk from head to toe, with a blatant, familiar orange and red design painted upon the fabric that draped in a mask across her entire face; the mark of the Eye.

The village chief blathered on, unaware, trying to both direct Barbaurak's attention to a different area and hoping to be subtle enough to avoid raising suspicion; it would have failed miserably, even if he hadn't been interrupted, for the man did not grasp the extent of an orc's senses, "See! There's nothing here! No tribute withheld—"

A tinkling of metal preceded the sound of the woman's clipped, articulate accent, "And who is this, Ariid?"

The man snapped around, eyes going wide, hissing under his breath.

"Tha' would be my question... This one looks marked fer the Dark Lord his'self," Barbaurak growled, flicking the tip of his knife towards the village chief. "Thinkin' ye could just keep 'er fer yer own then, were ya? Ya thought ye could lie right ta Razmat's face?"

"Wha! No, no!" If the man's, Ariid's, face could have drained of any more color, he would have looked like bones bleached by the desert sun. Sweat immediately pooled in the divots of the veins on his brow again. The orc pressed the blade to his throat, forcing him to retreat until the silk of his shoes was ruined by stumbling through the streambed that circled out from the center of the courtyard and his back was to the wall. "She is just a maid — wife! My wife! Yes. You see, I couldn't bear to send her away. Her constitution is too delicate to be sent away with the other women—"

"Oh really. Yer wife." It wasn't a question. Barbaurak had a decision to make, to prove Razmat was right to entrust this investigation with him. He looked towards the black-shrouded figure and curled his lip in a cold sneer. "What say you? If I were ta bleed out yer precious mate right here?"

Ariid sucked in a breath, but dared not say another word, for orc's blade warning him with a forceful little prick. His eyes bulged, the paint on his face fully starting to run, joining with the salty tears of one who knew he was trapped.

Barbaurak expected at least a hint of reservation or hesitation at his inquiry, humans were so squeamish, but the figure only tilted her head curiously, and, to Barbaurak's surprise, spoke with strange formality, "You offer a generous gift."

The orc needed no other bidding. Ariid's throat popped like a carcass bloated in the desert heat, emitting only a final gurgle as he slid limp down the wall into a puddle of his own bulk and blood. The silk jacket he wore instantly turned from cream and gold to scarlet red as his life drained into the same fountain spring that was otherwise a beacon of life in the harsh desert settlement, greedily hidden away for the village leader's personal claim.

Now that that was out of the way, Barbaurak had another issue to deal with; tributes were supposed to be muzzled and silent, like good little snaga; Razmat hated hearing their whines, pleas, and protests, the miserably merciless machine he was.

Barbaurak extracted his knife from Ariid's neck and pointed it at the woman, "Come here."

"I will not."

A dumbfounded look smacked Barbaurak across the face. He had never met a snaga so blatantly and openly defiant. At most slaves usually only dragged their feet or lagged about in resistance. For that split second, he fumbled over his words, not quite sure of how to respond until he accidentally bit his tongue. The sting snapped him back to the right state of mind. He turned upon her in full, revealing the grotesque half of his face that was a mass of flesh-melted scars; those scars had never totally stopped hurting after the firebomb incident, and now they pulsed with irritation. "That was an order, ya stupid—"

"Only a fool makes demands which cannot be fulfilled," the woman quipped back and pointedly gathered the cloth draped long over her feet, revealing a cuff around her ankle. She gave it a small shake; the source of the tinkling metal Barbaurak had heard, a chain extending from the cuff to somewhere in the room beyond the arch where she now stood, clattered against the stone and glass tiled floor. "I do not take you for a fool..."

Barbaurak shook himself, trying to be rid of the sensation of tension coiling in his shoulders, but finding it near impossible as he closed the distance between them, "It common fer yer people ta keep their wife chained up like a dog?"

"Less common than for your people—"

"MY PEOPLE don't take wives," the orc seized the hood of fabric over her head and unceremoniously stripped it away. "We take slaves—"

Barbaurak wasn't sure what he had been expecting behind the mask; perhaps someone worn and weathered, like most slaves he dealt with. What he didn't expect was the bizarre and intricate patterns of paint that greeted him like a creature of nightmare. Layers upon layers of elaborate painted designs, stripes and eyes of flame, repeating and mirroring down her cheeks, forehead, and throat. Even the waves of raven hair framing her head had received a similar treatment of paint, as though the ends had been dipped like a brush. The sight almost made Barbaurak step back out of sheer shock.

Set against the amber complexion of the woman's skin and the gold ink, red ochre, and coal black paint, her stormy gray eyes met the orc's with a disaffected pinch of her lips; even those were marked with a painting of an Eye. He watched with an almost mesmerized fascination as her painted lips opened for her to speak, but no words came out. She too was staring at the orc with a mixture of shock and horror as she took in his monstrous face, now free of the obstruction posted by the silk hood.

The air stood still between them, until, from the corner of his eye, the orc saw her hand lifting, almost involuntarily. Perhaps to push him away, or... The tips of the woman's fingers came within a hair's breadth of the scars on his cheek.

Barbaurak jerked back, gathered his senses, and grabbed the woman's wrist, finding that too was painted with fiery eyes which smeared at his touch, "Prolly never seen an orc b'fore... Don't even know what's expected of a snaga, do ya sharlob?"

Those eyes, her real, calm gray eyes blinked reservedly, revealing yet further flaming eyes painted upon the upper lids. That was when he felt a blade pierce his gut.

Frushkul... No... He wasn't Frushkul... That alias was worthless now, here at his end...

Barbaurak choked and coughed with a faint curl of the corner of his mouth; the spear now pinning him to the stone ruins was a poor substitute for the memory of the thin brass blade that had once scored his hide. The woman's knife hadn't been buried deep, not like the spear skewered through him like a boar; if she hadn't gotten lucky and nicked a vein, it probably wouldn't even have been all that bloody. The spear... Now that was bad.

Though dawn would soon be breaking, Barbaurak's vision was growing dark, staring up at the sky. His limbs grew as heavy as lead and buzzing with a hollow sensation and his whole body felt like ice from blood loss. Soon he'd be just another corpse along with all his dead recruits. Worthless. Every single one.

Maybe it was better that way... to just die here, where no one would care about his sorry carcass. He didn't know if he could face reality again. It would be so much easier to just let death take him. Maybe things would have turned out different, if he hadn't turned a blind eye to Snake-Tongue's desertion, when he became far too concerned with that red-haired sharlob.

One would think serving under Razmat, Barbaurak would have learned better than to turn a blind eye to such things. He should have just put Snake-Tongue down, then and there.

Stupid, meddling, elf-eared maggot, always sticking his nose where it didn't belong... even now...

Barbaurak blinked stupidly up at what he could only presume to be a mirage of Zathra looming over him. His tongue felt like fuzzy, tasting like silver and rotting meat in his mouth, making it hard to speak, "Ge'outta here... Bloody... Tr...aitor..."

The hallucination ignored Barbaurak's protests, knelt down, scanned over him with a bleak expression, grabbed the spear lodged in his gut, muttered something Barbaurak couldn't hear, and tore the spear back out.

"BLEEDIN' GRAUG-SHRAKH" Barbaurak howled bloody murder to the skies above, violently ripped from the illusion that his life has been flashing before his eyes. This was no illusion.

"Stay awake, Bar..." That cursed, elf-faced orc really was back and knelt over him, lit up with a haunting blue light, digging his gnarled hands into Barbaurak's gaping stomach wound.

Barbaurak could feel flesh knitting back together, organs that had been punctured sealing as though molten steel was being poured into his abdomen to cauterize it all back together. Through the agony, he cursed again and spat at Zathra, "Leave me alone... Juss let me die..."

"Oh no, ya don't. Yer not dyin' tha' easy." Zathra uttered through fangs grit in concentration.

"Then... what're ya doin'... damned elf-devil...?" Barbaurak coughed, splattering blood and writhing in agony, and wishing he had the strength enough to throw a punch.

"Shoulda thought tha' was obvious..." The wisps of magic curling around Zathra almost felt alive, moving as though they had a mind of their own, and echoing with the faintest hint of whispers. The elf-like orc looked possessed, eyes filled with wraith light and determination. "I'm gonna 'elp ya find Selga."

***** Translations: *****

Shara - Human

Snaga - Slave (one who serves)

Sharlob - Human woman

***** Author's Note: *****

I'm sorry if my posting schedule is a little erratic. I've been feeling pretty discouraged lately, so writing has been a bit hard. Thank you for your patience.

Don't want to wait for more? Read chapters as soon as I finished writing them on my discord! Link in my bio! If you are enjoying WTAWTAW, please consider leaving a comment! It really makes my day to hear what my readers think!