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Page 2 of Sacrificed to the Orc

The wood burns in the fire, spitting and crackling. I sit on the familiar indent of the couch as I always do at the end of my day, trying to relax, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. The stone hewn walls seal in the heat, well made by my grandparents on the outskirts of town. Well, I call them my grandparents, but we weren’t by blood. They found me, a mewling babe in the snows twenty-five years ago, and brought me in.

The wind whistles through the shutters of my window. I’ll have to ask the local carpenter Carl to reseal them, because this winter is going to be a long, icy one. I’m just glad the blight that affected the crops of the southern towns didn’t spread to us. When we heard of the sickness killing crops, we gathered by the fields, singing songs to ward off evil. Most of the townfolk regard it as idle superstition, but it’s better than doing nothing.

As the warmth of the fire washes over me, I lounge back against the cushions, smiling to myself. There’s nothing like an icy cold night to make you appreciate the warmth of your hearth.

I never knew my grandfather. He died when I was two, but my grandmother told me that his final years were the ones he smiled the most, because of me. I’ve got a cellar filled to the brim with canned vegetables, dried fish and beef. It sounds strange, but meat stored in my cellars last years longer than others, and others in the village store their food down below, always giving me choice cuts of meat in gratitude.

I’ll make stews this winter, hearty, simple fare to keep me going. My gardens are covered in sod to protect them over the long months ahead. It’s going to be a brutal one, and I can just picture Nana sipping on tea, complaining of the pain in her elbow that means the winter could be an entire year of ice and snow. The land gets quiet in the long winters. Nana always said I made tea the best, that when I sang softly as I brewed it, it was filled with medicine. That tea was the only thing that soothed her pain in her last years, speaking often of my grandfather, lost in her memories. I owe all twenty-five years of my life to them, and I am grateful every day that they found me.

I pull myself up from my seat. I could have stocked up my firewood earlier from the pile, but I like doing a last walk around my home before bed. It’s going to be a frosty one tonight. I open the door and step into the cold, the wind howling, the pigs huddled in their blankets, all three of them with their bodies pressed against the wall of the home. The other side is the roaring fire, keeping them warm through the winters.

They snuffle, awake and nervous, and I sing softly to soothe them, but a strange chill goes over my body. I shake off the sensation and walk to my woodpile, when I catch a flash of color over the ridge.

I’m frozen in terror as the orc warrior rises to his full height. He is over seven feet tall, a behemoth of a monster, his skin dark jade, covered in black runic tattoos where his fur cloak is opened to expose his chest to the elements. His cloak flows in the wind, showing his brutally muscled body, lean, built for war. His broad, hard face is a mask of rage, sharp lines as if he was hewn from the rocks of his mountain home, with fierce, brilliant eyes that glare at me with animalistic rage.

He is an inhuman monstrosity of muscle, an immovable stone obelisk, still as a statue except for his monstrous bulge that rears to life, pressing thickly against his black loincloth as he licks his fangs. My heart is pounding in a panicked rhythm, my song dying on my lips as I try to will my feet to move, but I’m rooted to the ground, frozen by the primal creature.

He runs his huge red tongue over his sharp, ivory fangs, and a terrible glimpse of my future washes over me. A war bride of the orc, a captured slave forced to obey his darkest, primal urges. The sweaty, stinking beast of a man would turn me into his breeding toy. A wave of dreads fills me, and a tingle rushes through me as I am petrified by his might, the huge titan of a beast standing proudly on the ridge as if the biting winds do not affect him. His black, curly mane of hair billows in the gale and he springs into action.

His tree trunk legs drive him forward, eating up the ground, and the only trace of me will be the booted footprints on the ground if he catches me.

The scream rips out of my lungs, shattering the silence of the snow-blanketed fields as I spin to flee, the pigs squealing in panic. I grab my door when his huge hand clamps around my arm, spinning me to face him.

The orc towers over me. His face is rugged and hard, almost handsome, in a brutal, masculine way. His features are sharp and chiseled, like a sculpture made by superstitious villagers of a war god crafted to ward off evil. His eyes are a piercing shade of emerald, glowing against his dark jade skin, boring through my soul as he stares down at me, nostrils flaring as he drinks in my smell.

The stink of him hits me in a wave, this masculine, primal, animal scent of distilled testosterone and rage that makes me freeze up, but I force my hands upwards, slamming my fists against his broad chest. It’s like punching the wall of my home. He grunts, squatting slightly, and throws me over his shoulder like I am a doll.

I slap my hands against his back, but it’s useless. He oozes pure power, and I’ve never felt so helpless. He clamps his hand against my ass, pressing me against his shoulder as he sprints off into the night.

I let out a desperate howl, and he silences me with three hard spanks on my ass, his huge palm like iron against my soft flesh. “No words,” he growls in the common tongue, each syllable dripping with violence. The alarm horns of my village sound, and I squeeze my eyes shut in terror, knowing that even our bravest guards won’t dare to follow an orc into the storm.

The orc crouches. I open my eyes, and he grabs a brutal war-axe from the snow, and I have one last glance of my sleepy village home before he carries me over the ridge, and soon, there is nothing but a suffocating blanket of pure white snow and the orc’s footsteps marring it.

Footprints in the snow, but no one will follow.

The size of the prints means an orc warrior. They’ve raided our village before, and we drove them back with fire, but they steal cattle and pigs in the night and no one dares to follow them. The village will mourn me. There will be songs of loss, and as the years pass, I will be forgotten.

Tears stream down my cheek, and I sob, but the orc never stops. He slings the axe in the belt of his loincloth, and I go limp, knowing that hitting him is useless, and all it would get me is another hard slap on my ass. There’s heat on my cheeks from his callused hand, and I hate knowing that he has marked me, a red handprint.

The orc’s breath quickens to a panting rhythm as he lopes through the snow, balancing me, and soon there is no trace of my home except for distant trails of grey smoke swallowed by the deepening darkness.

“Where are you taking me?” I moan out, my voice quivering, shivering against the warmth of his body. I wrapped myself up in a cloak before stepping out into the night air, but I wasn’t planning on being outside for more than a minute. My cloak is riding up with each of his steps, and the wind is chill on my legs.

The only answer is his rhythmic panting as he jogs through the snow, his huge, booted feet finding sure footing on the treacherous ground as he takes me towards the mountains that loom ever-present over our village.

The three moons are near full, casting a cold glow over the icy terrain. Behind me, the endless trail of his footprints leads into darkness.

Finally, the orc stops as we enter the forest, tall pines that have seen centuries towering above us. He puts me down, frozen pine needles crunching under my feet like bone, and I shiver, pulling my cloak tighter against me. I glance into the forest, thinking of running, knowing that he would catch me in seconds…

And that he would punish me for my attempt.

The orc strides to a boulder nestled at the base of a towering pine, bracing himself against the packed snow, and pushes. His biceps cord and he groans, low and deep, his veins throbbing with exertion as the boulder gives way to his beastly strength, rolling aside. Underneath, there is a tunnel leading downwards.

He points. I shake my head, and with a growl, he wraps his hand around my wrist, pulling me down with him. It’s a small cavern, more like a den for a bear, and there are furs and the stink of orc. I wasn’t imagining someone watching me. This was his hideout, and I don’t know how many days he has spent, planning the kidnapping. He shoves me roughly onto a bed of furs, towering over me, his fur cloak opened.

The pale moonlight seeps in, glowing against his skin, accentuating the hard lines of his being. He is lean, almost too skinny, as if he has not been eating, and his abs are hard ridges, every muscle of his body defined. He is a towering creature carved of green marble, over seven foot tall, a titan of a man built for the hunt. His Adonis belt is a V taper leading down to his black loincloth, which barely restrains the massive bulge of his monstrous cock.

His eyes glow with burning green light, venomous as they stare straight through me, and I pull my cloak tighter around me as he looks me up and down, slowly running his tongue over his fangs. Black tattoos in runic patterns swirl over his muscles, coming alive with each movement, violent patterns earned through war.


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