"Is this it?" Lyrica sneered. She peered down into the pit from underneath the rim of her silken umbrella. The stairs of the Pentatheon were crowded with other women, the wives and mistresses of the men of the region. Small people. Provincial people. She dipped her voice and whispered to her husband beside her. "This is why you dragged me out here to this back-water shithole?"
"Patience, my love." Rupilius replied curtly. He dipped his head to the ground and similarly dropped his voice. "And keep your harsh words in your throat. You wouldn't want to offend our host now, would you."
Rupilius cast a quick glance up the stairs at Oxoca and his wife. He was a welcoming, round-faced man, whose bronzed skin betrayed his rather plebeian hobby of tending his own garden. A Patricium in Valtris or the capital, Recia, would never indulge in such a humble hobby. He smiled demurely at them both, and they smiled back. The whole exchange was saccharine and cloyingly civil.
Lyrica turned back towards the pit, the grin on her face instantly dropping as soon as she looked away. All of these provincial Patriciums were frankly embarrassing. Once the town had gotten word that she and Rupilius were looking for accommodation in Pelagon, they'd practically been falling over each other to be the ones to put them up, and Oxoca - with his dirt under his nails and his garden of home-grown tomatoes - had somehow won the honour.
But this city stank. She could smell the tanneries even from the perfumed airy villa of her hosts on the edge of Pelagon. She could still catch a lingering, acrid tang on the food they served at table. She'd taken only a few, demure bites so as not to offend in the whole time she'd been here. Even when she lay in the clean white bedsheets, the scent of acid and urine seemed to cling to her skin.
She couldn't wait to leave this stinking hovel and have her houseslaves draw her a hot bath.
Lyrica looked down her nose at the chained orcs in the pit again.
"They look half-starved," She remarked coldly.
"They always do, a few days after capture," Rupilius replied. "But we're not looking for brute-strength, we're looking for potential, my love."
"And you truly think you'll find potential in this stink-pit?"
Rupilius tightened his grip around her arm. "I said keep your voice down," he hissed through his clenched teeth. "Crito's Beard! No one is going to allocate their votes to me if they hear my wife insulting their city!"
Lyrica schooled her face not to respond to the pain. Even when Rupilius slackened his grip, nothing showed in her cold, blue eyes. She glanced back over her shoulder, up the steps of the Pentatheon. She had sacrificed a piglet at the altar of Xiri - the God of Wisdom - in the hopes that he would bless her husband with the presence of mind to make a good decision at the market today. But perhaps she should have sacrificed to Xini - the Goddess of Kindness. It would be a kindness to let her leave this city behind.
"First on the agenda!" A soldier hollered from the center of the pit. He unshackled a small female from the front of the row of chained orcs and dragged her into the center. "A little short, but her eyes are bright and her tusks are white! She'd be good for a brothel, no?"
A few zealous laughs went up from the crowd of onlookers.
"Come on! I'm sure she'd make her worth back by next spring three times over!"
"Three decimari!" Someone shouted from the crowd.
"Four!" A quieter voice said.
The bidding started. Lyrica watched quietly as the little female orc shivered in the morning air. She cast a sideways glance at Rupilius. It wouldn't be unlike him to bet on an orc like this one. He always had an eye for the pretty ones. But Rupilius kept his eyes firmly fixed on the steps of the Pentatheon below him.
Lyrica shrugged her heavy shoulders. Rupilius's latest present to her, a duo of fox furs, hung off her slim frame. The color of the fox fur suited her, contrasting well with the inky darkness of her hair, but she would have preferred mink. How he had grinned to himself when he had told her how jealous the ladies back in Valtris would be when she showed them her genuine Pelagon furs, but the skinner had left the animal's tails and heads on the pelts and now a duo of sunken-faced foxes sat on her shoulders. They were unsettling. Grizzly. Each time she caught their little razor teeth and their sewn-up eyes in the corner of her vision, she had to fight to hold back her grimace. The ladies back in Valtris would sooner whisper horrible little jokes behind her back about the dead animals perched on her shoulders than compliment her.
The small female went for seven decimari in the end. More orcs followed: a young male of about eleven summers sold to the city stablemaster, three older females and an elderly male sold to the mines down in Salsorum, two orc younglings sold to a fat, bronzed-skinned millionaire from the Aurorix territory, and another three pretty females bought-up by a vineyard owner from Cerealis.
Lyrica kept a close eye on her husband, watching his face carefully for the faintest hint of interest. He was clearly looking for that 'potential' of which he'd spoken of, but with each passing sale, she could see his intrigue waning.
"Finally, a strong young boar of a brute! Straight from the darkest parts of the forest!"
The soldier brought forwards a proud and straight-backed male. His hands were clasped in chains before him, but Lyrica could see from the way he held his arms, his shoulders, the way he planted his legs, that he was a strong one. She liked the way the sun caught in his hair. A deep, coppery amber that reminded her of burning embers and molten bronze. He was tall for an orc, perhaps five foot eleven or more. Most of the other males she'd seen were shorter than this one. Stockier too. The orc before her was well built but slim. Lithe and taut, like a well-crafted bow.
"Now, a male of this quality would normally sell for fifteen, perhaps twenty decimari!" The soldier shouted to the bidders. "But, this one has no use of his tongue. He's a mute!"
A murmur of surprise and derision went through the crowd. Lyrica raised an eyebrow at the orc. He certainly was different…
"So, we'll start the bidding at eight decimari."
"Eight! Half price, Lyrica! A steal for a fighter like that!" Rupilius whispered to her.
"Bid on him then." She replied with a casual shrug of her shoulders.
Rupilius shuffled awkwardly on his feet. He seemed nervous. Restless. "Do you think it's a good idea?"
Lyrica rolled her eyes. Rupilius could never make a decision by himself.
"He's a novelty, isn't he. The crowd like novelties. It keeps it interesting for them."
"Hmm…" he grumbled, nodding his head sagely. "Eight decimari!" He shouted to the soldier.
"Thank you, Patricium!" The soldier said, bowing his head to Rupilius. "Any advance on eight?"
"Nine!"
Another murmur of interest went up from the crowd. Lyrica and Rupilius both craned their heads to search for the rival bidder.
"Oh Crito's beard!" Rupilius groaned. "How long has he been in Pelagon?!"
"Lost your nerve, Rupilius?!" The rival bidder shouted back to him. He was a portly man, bald head shining in the weak sun. A young orc child attended him, carrying two leather bags off his small shoulders and holding the hem of the man's coat out of the dirt.
"Caecilius!" Rupilius exclaimed, trying to muster the widest shit-eating grin he could. "When did you arrive in town, dear friend?"
"Just yesterday! Picked up some wonderful stock in the creatures market, but I just had to stay when I was told the latest caravan of orcs was due back soon!"
"Gentlemen, do I hear any advance on nine?" The soldier asked them.
Lyrica could hear Rupilius grinding his teeth beside her. She sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. This is just what she needed. For her husband to get baited into a cock-swinging competition with the owner of one of the biggest rival Houses…
"Ten!" Rupilius shouted back.
"Thirteen!" Caecilius crowed. The little orc boy holding his coat flinched at the loud noise.
"How is he not satisfied?! He must have bought-up half the orcs of Sapporio! Surely his barracks are bursting!" Rupilius whispered furiously to Lyrica. "Fifteen!"
There goes that 'bargain' warrior. Lyrica thought, rolling her eyes up to the sky.
"Nineteen!" Caecilius enunciated, almost spitting the word at Rupilius's feet.
"Twenty-five!" Rupilius roared, going red in the face.
The crowd gasped. Lyrica shut her eyes and sighed deeply.
Caecilius held up his hands and puffed out a laugh. "He's all yours, Rupilius! Clearly you see something in the young boar! I'd hate to deprive you of him!"
He bowed deeply to Rupilius and Lyrica, pointing his bald, shiny head their way.
The newly bought orc was pushed harshly up the steps of the pit. Watching onlookers clapped politely, shouting their congratulations up at Rupilius and Lyrica for such a fine purchase. The soldier tugged the mute orc all the way up the steps of the Pentatheon, placing his chains firmly in Rupilius's hands in a transition of ownership.
"Shall I send the bill to your residence in Valtris, my Lord?" The soldier asked.
Rupilius just nodded weakly, as if only just realising what he'd done.
Caecilius's laughter echoed as the crowd began to disperse, murmurs of interest still rippling through the marketplace. Rupilius, still flushed with anger, turned to Lyrica, who was watching Caecilius with a calculated glint in her eye. She smoothed the silly fur of the fox on her left shoulder, and tilted her head toward her husband.
"Well… you handled that well," she said lightly, though her tone carried the sharp edge of sarcasm. "But I think we can do better than just a single victory at the auction block."
Rupilius, still catching his breath from the heated bidding, frowned. "What do you mean? He backed down. We won."
Lyrica tutted impatiently. She turned her attention to Caecilius, who was now lounging against a post, his young orc servant fussing over his coat.
"Lord Caecilius," she called sweetly, her voice carrying just enough to catch his attention without seeming overly eager.
She stepped forward, her movements graceful and deliberate, as though she were gliding down the dusty steps of the Pentatheon.
"I couldn't help but notice your enthusiasm for today's stock," she began, her tone honeyed but her eyes sharp. "You must have acquired quite the collection by now."
Caecilius chuckled, his belly shaking. "Indeed, my lady. Our recent victories over The Straits of Elegaris have indeed swelled my ranks. But, as you well know, one can never have too many… investments."
"Of course," Lyrica replied smoothly, folding her hands before her. "But surely, with so many fine investments now in your possession, you've had difficulty separating the wheat from the chaff. It's a common problem for those with… expansive holdings. Isn't it, my love?"
Lyrica turned back to Rupilius briefly. He was scratching his head, fingers running through the sparse hair that lingered behind his ears. His large blue eyes looked back at her with an air of vacancy. Like Lyrica and Caecilius were speaking in a different language to him.
Lyrica fought hard to swallow her contempt and turned back to Caecilius.
She was quick enough to catch Caecilius's smile faltering for a fraction of a second, before he recovered. "I only spend my money on the best, Lady Lyrica. Like your husband, I have an eye for quality."
"Oh I'm sure, I'm sure…" Lyrica said soothingly. "Then you won't mind a friendly exhibition," she said, her voice lilting with feigned innocence. "Right here in Pelagon. My husband's newest acquisitions against yours. It would be a fine spectacle for the people. I doubt the inhabitants here rarely enjoy a display of the quality yourself and my husband often provide in Valtris. What an excellent treat for them it would be! And, well, I'm sure you'd appreciate a swift and easy way to prove the quality of your… investments."
Rupilius looked intrigued, though he tried to hide it behind a neutral expression. He didn't quite know what Lyrica was scheming away at, but it sounded interesting.
Caecilius stroked his chin, his eyes narrowing. "An exhibition, you say? And what would be the stakes, Lady Lyrica?"
"Oh, nothing so crass as money," she said, though her smile suggested otherwise. "Simply the satisfaction of knowing who holds the superior stock. Of course, we could sell tickets—purely to cover expenses, you understand. The proceeds could go to the city's coffers. How big is the arena here? Fifteen-hundred? Two-thousand?"
Caecilius laughed, though it lacked his earlier mirth. "You're a shrewd negotiator, my lady. But very well. I'll agree to your terms. Let's see what your orcs are made of."
"Wonderful," Lyrica said, clapping her hands together lightly. "Shall we set the date for tomorrow? That should give us enough time to make the necessary arrangements."
"Tomorrow it is," Caecilius agreed, his tone wary but his pride compelling him to accept.
As the two parted ways, Lyrica turned to Rupilius, her smile dropping into a look of cool determination. She gestured for her husband to follow and Rupilius dutifully fell in step behind her. His new purchase trailed behind him, proud chin dipped low and the sound of the chains around the orc's hands tinkling loudly.
"Now," she said quietly, "let's see if these orcs of yours are worth the fortune we just spent."
"And if they're not?"
Lyrica's eyes glinted. "Then we'll make sure they pay for themselves."
Rupilius nodded, his expression grim. "I'm sorry, my love…" he said meekly. "But he bid me up and I had to-"
"Yes, yes. You had to keep up appearances. Had to compare bollock-sizes with one another..."
"My love!" Rupilius exclaimed, glancing over his shoulder. He relaxed a little when he realised that Oxoca and his wife hadn't followed them. He let out a long sigh and scratched at the sparse hair on his head with his spare hand again.
"And stop clawing at yourself! You aren't a dog!" Lyrica snapped at him. "You'll scratch the rest of your hair away if you're not careful."
Rupilius felt the tips of his ears turn red with embarrassment. His thinning hair was something he was particularly tetchy about. He wheeled around to face his new orc purchase and found him staring directly into his face.
Perhaps he saw a flicker of humour in the creature's eyes, perhaps he didn't. Either way, embarrassment turned to white-hot anger inside him and he cracked the orc hard across his cheek.
The creature's eyes went wide with shock.
"Don't you dare look at me!" He roared into the orc's face.
The creature closed his mouth, powerful tusks grinding together and nostrils huffing hard. Clearly his new purchase was weighing up whether to retaliate. New orc stock always had a little bit of fight still in them.
The muscles in the orc's arms bulged a little as he tested the bonds around his hands. The chains tinkled again, suddenly seeming small and miniscule in holding back this monster.
"Oh, don't bait it, Rupilius. It's not the pig's fault that you're thinning."
Rupilius swallowed down another bubble of hurt and anger that rose in his throat. "That's rather rich coming from you, my love." He muttered bitterly.
Something cold and rageful flared up in Lyrica's eyes. Rupilius fought hard not to flinch away from it. Especially not in front of his new purchase. Otherwise the next few months of breaking the creature would be even more difficult.
If it survived whatever Lyrica had organised, that was…
Rupilius broke his stare with his wife, looking around him in submission. He searched the faces flitting about the market square for someone to palm off his new purchase on. If the beast did decide to snap, then he didn't want to be the one holding it.
"Thalara!" He hollered over the heads. "Thalara!"
Bleda's eyes flicked up as a young orc girl surged forwards out of the crowd. She was smaller than other females he'd known, with a pale, olive-green complexion compared to the deep moss that he was used to seeing.
"Yes, Vulpe," she said demurely, bowing her head low to the man who held his chains.
Bleda could not take his eyes off her. She had no tusks in her mouth, but her ears were pointed in the traditional orc way.
She's a half-breed, Bleda realised. Just like Morag.
He'd never seen another half-breed before. He didn't think any others existed.
"Take my new acquisition back to Master Oxoca's holdings, will you?"
He dropped the heavy chains into the girl's small hands. The links seemed massive as she curled her fingers around them.
Bleda considered them for a moment. If the half-breed was anything like Morag, she'd most likely not inherited the strength of the Orcs. He could tug those links straight out of her tiny hands and run back to the forest.
She feebly began to lead him away and Bleda's hungry, compliant feet followed her.
He hadn't eaten properly for days. Nor had he slept well. Even if he did try to run, this wretched human city was all around him. Drowning him in its stink and presence, like a bog's putrid waters. He glanced around at the swarm of humans milling about the steps of the great Temple. Those that did meet his eye put a cautionary hand on the weapons at their belts. There was no way he'd make it out of Pelagon without receiving an arrow in the back for his troubles.
Still, the small half-breed led him dutifully through the crowds, the large chain trailing behind her. As if she was walking a dog twice the size as her.
He stopped abruptly when they had walked out of eyesight from the balding human man and the birch-faced woman.
She whirled around to face him, her small face wide-eyed and frightened.
Bleda raised his hands and she flinched from him.
"Let me go," He furiously signed. "They took me from the Wolf Tribe. I must find my sister. Have any caravans of females-"
"I… I don't understand," She stuttered.
"Please! Her name is Morag. I have to find her before she-"
"What are you doing?" The half-breed asked, glancing down at his hands. A frown of confusion crinkled between her brows. "I'm sorry. I don't…"
Bleda stopped. He studied her face carefully. There was a vacant kind of look here. And emptiness that he'd never seen before.
She didn't know the hunting language.
"Please, don't be difficult for me…" she breathed quietly, her large eyes filling with tears. "She'll blame me if you…"
Bleda saw the faint tremor in her bottom lip. The half-breed glanced down at her small hands, peeling one of her palms away from his chain and stealing a quick glance at her fingers. The skin on the female's hands was red and cracked. A patchwork of callouses and raw sores.
She swallowed hard and gripped Bleda's chains again. "Come. There's food at Master Oxoca's villa. Food?"
She spoke the word to him. Slow and deliberate. As if he was simple.
"Are you hungry?" She asked, pulling gently in his chains.
Helplessness filled him. A pile of bitter stones lodged at the bottom of his stomach. If he'd had any strength left in him at all, it burnt out entirely as the small half-breed pulled him gently onwards.
The orcs of the Black Furs would have laughed at him. To have seen a fully grown male being led away by a female creature half his size. But they were all dead now. He'd seen their heads on top of some of those spikes in the holding pit.
Bleda was jealous of them. They'd lead a warrior's life and now they got to languish in a warrior's death.
Not him.
He was now this half-breed female's puppy.
"I can see if the hens have laid any more eggs," the female continued, glancing over her shoulder at him every few steps. "Perhaps you'd like that? Although perhaps we should start you off with something small. That curly-haired one in the cellars almost vomited his guts up, he gorged himself so much…"
He flicked his eyes briefly up to her small, round face. A small betrayal of his hunger.
"Eggs?" the female repeated again. "You understood that, yes?"
The hunger roiled away inside his stomach. Just hearing the name of food made his mouth fill with saliva. He was no better than a dog - a hungry dog.
"Come on," she said leadingly, tugging ever so slightly on his chains, and to his shame, he followed.
Bleda sat outside the villa, chained to one of the tethering links in the wall.
They were most likely for the household's horses. There was animal shit at his feet and hay in between the cobbles around him. He supposed that's what he was now: just another animal that belonged to a human. But he was beyond pride at this moment.
He shovelled the eggs into his mouth with his bare hands. They were the same shade of yellow as the skin of a drum. The same drums that had pounded at his Consecration…
He might have stopped chewing. Might have stopped shovelling the eggs into his mouth as the bile rose up in his throat. But he was hungry. And not even the memories of his old life could stop him from eating.
The half-breed female had led him all the way through the town, until the stink of the tanneries and the built-up houses gave way to the richer parts of the city. The courtyard of the villa was the first bit of green he'd seen since he'd set foot in Pelagon. It was a small little square of grass, a softly chattering water fountain perched at its center. It looked too neat, too manicured to Bleda. He was used to the wildness of Corvionii. He could tell this was a pale imitation of nature. A nice bit of contained and controlled wilderness for the humans to look out their window at. There were dozens of rose bushes too. So many blooming flowers that the air was overpoweringly sweet and cloying. But again, it might have put him off his eggs if he weren't so violently hungry.
The female had been quick with his food. After she had attached his chains to the horse tethers and nervously pattered away inside the villa, she had only made him wait a short while before she had re-emerged with a wooden bowl in her hands. The poor thing had let out a small, high-pitched squeak when Bleda had snatched it from out of her grasp.
The noises he made, the gasping, grunting desperation with which he inhaled the eggs soon had the half-breed female retreating back into the shade of the kitchens.
Through the noise of his own rushed chewing, he could hear low, hushed whispers coming from the shadows inside the villa.
"…Did you see the way he grabbed it?" the half-breed whispered, her voice sharp and quivering in the dimness beyond the archway. "Like a wolf that's been starved out in the snows. Like he was going to bite my hand clean off!"
The other voice was lower, a gravel scrape. Male. Orc, by the sound of it, though Bleda wasn't sure. He slowed his chewing just enough to hear better, ears twitching toward the villa's mouth.
"You ain't never fed a fresh slave before," the voice answered. "They all do that. Same as dogs after a whipping." There was a pause, and Bleda imagined the speaker's tusks tapping together in thought. "This one just don't talk is all. Quiet's worse. Quiet ones… they think about things."
The half-breed made a sound then—a nervous titter that didn't carry any true humor. "I think… I think he was trying to speak to me… Back at the marketplace. He was making these… funny gestures with his hands…"
"Who knows?." A dismissive grunt. The scrape of something heavy—boots, maybe—on tile. "What's to be done with him?"
There was quiet, broken only by the faint plip-plip of the courtyard fountain behind him and the wet sounds of Bleda swallowing another handful of eggs.
"I don't know. I think he's destined for the arena."
"He's to be kept down below then," the male finally said. His voice was tighter now. "With the other one. Until they've decided if he's worth bulking up or just good as a creature-carcass."
Another silence. Longer this time. He imagined the orc's heavy shoulders rolling under a slave's branded tunic, the thick rope of his arms crossed, unwilling.
"They'll put him in the deep cellar?" The female asked, her voice quivering and ringing with sympathy.
"That's what Master Oxoca would want. He only likes to see House-Orcs about the villa," he replied, quicker now. "And if he says so, it's law."
"But he isn't Oxoca's. He's Vulpe's." The female replied, a little defensively.
"Doesn't matter! I'll still get the whip if he's seen up here!" The male shouted, his voice ringing through the pristine courtyard.
There was silence for a long while. Even Bleda stopped chewing.
"Alright," the little female voice breathed. "Just… make sure he's comfortable down there."
Bleda licked the last streaks of yolk from the bowl with mechanical precision. His mind wasn't on the food anymore, and the taste of it—greasy, gritty with shell fragments—had turned to dust in his mouth. His eyes didn't move from the sun-bleached courtyard. He could hear the footsteps behind him, slow but certain.
"Get up."
It wasn't a request. Not quite a threat, either. Just the flat command of someone long since hollowed out by years of servitude.
Bleda stood, letting the chain attached to his wrists clink against the stone. The iron was cold against his throat. He said nothing as a male Orc— older, the hairs of his beard grey and wiry- stepped forward, a thick hand closing around the chain. The orc didn't meet his eyes. None of them did.
They crossed the courtyard, under trellises blooming with too many flowers, the air thick with the scent of rot masked by sweetness. The villa's walls loomed up around them, their plaster faded and flaking in long strips, painted scenes of wars past—human victories, always. You could barely make out the orcs in some of them anymore, so scrubbed out were their shapes. Just faceless shadows, now. Ghosts.
They passed through a door, its bronze fittings tarnished to green, and into a narrow hall that spiraled downward. The light died quick here. Stone stairs led them into the earth, into a cold that hadn't seen the sun in years. It stank of damp limestone, of old wine spilled in the dust, of metal and piss and blood dried to dark scabs.
The male Orc's breath was loud in the dark. "It ain't personal," he said after a while. The chain clinked again, shifting as Bleda ducked under an arch. "We all got our places. You keep quiet. Don't fight, don't make trouble. Might be they'll leave your stones intact."
The corridor flattened out, and the male Orc took a brass key from his belt. The door before them was thick wood banded in iron, scarred with old blade-marks. The orc unlocked it with a grunt.
Inside, the cell was black, but Bleda could smell another body. Male too. There was straw piled in one corner and an old wine rack gutted of bottles along one wall. Now it held shackles instead of vintage.
"Go on," the male Orc said, tugging the chain forward. "This is home now."
Bleda went. He didn't stumble. Didn't hesitate.
The door slammed behind him with a hollow, final sound.
The darkness inside the cell eventually began to ease. After a few moments, Bleda's eyes adjusted enough to pick out the shape of the other Orc huddled in the far corner. He sat cross-legged on the stone, a lazy sprawl that looked almost deliberate, like he was holding court on a cracked throne of old straw and discarded bones. His skin was the same green-brown shade as lake mud, slicked with the sweat of heat and hunger. One eye gleamed faintly, catching the watery light that dripped in from the high grate in the wall. The other eye was a pale, dead thing—a cloudy stone lodged in his skull.
"Ah," the orc said, his voice a dry rasp laced with amusement, "they've brought me a bunk-mate. I was starting to think I wasn't pretty enough for company."
Bleda did nothing. He stood still for a moment, heavy chain dangling slack from his wrists, the thick band digging into his flesh. His arms ached from the weight of Lorai's corpse, still ghosting in his muscles. He didn't move toward the straw or the wall. Just stood there, breathing, eyes dull.
The other Orc tilted his head, regarding him with the good eye. "Silent type. Mmm? Those are the dangerous ones." His lips twisted in a grin that showed two long tusks stained yellow near the root. "Or the boring ones. No way to tell until it's too late."
The Orc's blind eye rolled aimlessly as he picked at a scab on his shoulder with a cracked fingernail. He sniffed, long and loud. "You hear them laughing up there?" he asked, jerking his chin toward the ceiling. "Fat Oxoca's pigs. Bet they're clinking their goblets, talking about which one of us has the best tusks for a necklace." His tone was flippant, but there was a brittle edge to it, like a reed bent too often in the wind.
Bleda finally moved, sitting down with a slow, bone-grinding stiffness. He rested his back against the cold wall and drew his knees up to his chest, watching the other Orc without blinking.
The younger orc huffed. "By the way, I'm Drekkar. Former miner, failed escape artist, and now… what do they call it? Ah, yes. 'House Ornament'. And you are…?"
Silence.
Drekkar chuckled, the sound like gravel poured into an empty urn. "No name, then? Or you just don't want to share? Fine. I'll give you one. Let's see…" He scratched his jaw with a clawed thumb. "You look like…'Brick-Head'. Quiet. Heavy. Solid. No offense."
Bleda's eyes went wide with outrage. Drekkar's grin widened as he caught the movement.
"Ah. Hit the mark, did I?" he said softly. "Good. We'll be best friends in no time."
He leaned back against the wall with a sigh, his blind eye drifting upward toward the faint sound of footsteps on tile far above them.
"You been in Pelagon before?" he asked after a while. "No? I only got here about fourteen or fifteen nights ago. I lost count."
Drekkar's voice dropped to a murmur, almost thoughtful. "You get lucky, they'll keep you whole. Put you in the arena. You get unlucky… they'll geld you and make you carry their wine." He tapped his temple. "I've seen it. Saw it in Salsorum. They think it makes you weak, but it just makes you quiet. That's worse. Quiet ones don't forget."
Bleda kept his eyes on him, but he said nothing. His throat worked, swallowing dust.
Drekkar sighed again and stretched out his legs. His left ankle was shackled to the wall by a loop of rusted iron. The scar where they'd taken his eye was puckered and pink, still raw in places.
"Never took my stones though, mind. Not sure what I would have preferred. My balls, or my eye." He pointed at his face and laughed heartily. The scar stretched sorely over his face as he chuckled.
Drekkar fell silent, looking at Bleda carefully with his one good eye.
"You really not gonna speak, Brick-Head?"
"My name is Bleda." He signed quickly. It was instinctual. Out of his fingers before he could stop himself.
"Raven Father!" Drekkar chuckled warmly. "I ain't seen anyone use the hunting-language since I was taken."
"You..," Bleda signed hesitantly. "You can understand me?"
Drekkar nodded. "Used it all the time when we fished around Prio."
Understanding dawned on Bleda gently. That's why this male looked different to all the other Orcs he'd grown up around. Drekkar's skin was a swampier shade of green to his, his shoulders and arm muscles broader and more developed, even his hair - a tangle of dark brown curls - was unlike anything he'd seen amongst his tribe back in the forest.
He was a Marsh-Dweller.
Bleda blinked at him a few times. It had been decades since his tribe had had any contact with Orcs that were not from Corvionii. They'd been separated, driven apart by the victorious humans, hundreds of years prior. And since orc-kind had all gone into hiding, eventually any form of communication amongst the different tribes had died out. Most of the males and females Bleda had grown up with had come to believe that perhaps all of the other Orc tribes had been wiped out.
"You can talk to me, you know! They ain't got any ears down here!" Drekkar chuckled.
Bleda merely shook his head, pointing at his mouth with a solemn expression.
"Oh," Drekkar sighed. "You can't speak."
Bleda nodded.
"Well…that's alright. Although it was a bit of a task to get me to shut up back when I was in Prio. So, I didn't get much practise in the hunting-language!" Drekkar laughed heartily and slapped Bleda on the back. "Just go slow, and I'm sure I'll get it eventually."
"The girl upstairs..," Bleda began. "The half-breed. She couldn't… She couldn't understand me".
"Well, no. Probably not. She's the property of that bald cunt who arrived here about a week ago, isn't she?"
Bleda shrugged.
Drekkar tutted and rolled his good eye. "If she's his, then she's probably not… I mean, she probably wasn't… taken like me and you were."
Again, Bleda was slow to realise what he meant. But the thought ran down his spine, like the drip of ice cold water down the back of his shirt:
The female was born into this. She didn't understand him because she was born a slave.
Bleda was suddenly filled with a heavy weariness. Too many thoughts and emotions stirred through his blood and his mind. The world around him was beginning to take shape, but it was a miserable one. A hard, dreadful and terrifying one. One where orcs were born, lived and died without seemingly ever seeing a life outside of human captivity. Would he ever see a life outside of human captivity again? It didn't seem possible with the weight of the irons now around his wrists.
"Sleep if you can," Drekkar said, settling his head back against the stone. "You'll be on your feet again soon enough. Either in chains or in the dirt. Try and recuperate some strength."
Bleda didn't move. He sat there in the dark, listening to Drekkar's slow breathing, the faint drip of water from the ceiling. His hands rested on his knees, fingers curling slightly.
"Sleep." Drekkar repeated again. "I'll watch your back, Brick-Head, not to worry. We're bunk-mates now."
His eyelids started to tingle. The weight of all of those sleepless nights on the road to Pelagon seemed to press down upon him at once. Still, did he trust this Orc? Bleda dragged his gaze over the one-eyed face of Drekkar beside him. Did he trust this Orc not to smother him in his sleep so he didn't have to share his cell and his food with him?
"Or would you like me to tuck you in and sing you a lament, my little Greenfang?" Drekkar asked, pinching Bleda's cheek in his thumb and forefinger.
Despite himself, Bleda huffed out a short scoff and cracked the tiniest of smiles. He pushed the Orc's hand away and felt his unease leave him a little.
Perhaps he was being too quick to trust. Perhaps he'd pay for it when he woke up to straw being pushed down his throat. But he didn't fear death anymore. Death was where his mother was. And Lorai. And Cragmar. And all the others.
And he decided that liked this one-eyed Marsh-Dweller that talked too much.