She pauses, letting her gaze linger on us with obvious distaste, then leans forward and inhales deeply near me. Her face twists with disgust.
"But not for orcs. Never for orcs."
Heat floods my cheeks, but beneath the shame burns something harder—anger that this creature dares speak of what Thoktar and I share as if it's contamination.
A young man steps forward—or perhaps he's old, it's impossible to tell with the way shadows seem to pool in the hollows of his face. His arms bear what look like deliberatescars, parallel lines that might be decorative or might serve some purpose I don't want to contemplate.
"The waters reject orcish flesh," he says in a voice like grinding shells. "Makes the catch go bad. Poisons the deep pools where the children play."
"And the girl?" Rophan presses, his voice carefully neutral though I can see the tension in his massive shoulders.
Grandmother Netts tilts her head like a bird studying prey, and something hungry flickers behind her pale green eyes.
“I smell orc cock on her, damned to the land she is. The deep ones forbid their kind from traveling the waters north. Too much... screaming. The nets remember.
“You take their offer, Rophan,” Thoktar says.
“I can’t leave the both of you here,” Rophan says.
“The north is only a week or two walk away.” Thoktar says. “The fresh air will do us good.”
“We want you gone, orc. And the whore.” A deep voice from behind them says.
Thoktar shifts around, fist clenching. “What did you say?”
“Master Sinks was only joking, weren’t you Master Sinks.” Grandma Netts says glaring at him.
“Jokes are lost on orcs, the truth too.” Master Sinks says as turns quickly and walks away.
Thoktar begins to move, Rophan grabs his arm. “Easy.”
I grab the other one, “No trouble my handsome orc, no trouble.”
Grandma Netts spits on the ground and looks at Rophan, “Yeah or nigh?”
"When do we sail?" Rophan asks, his tone making it clear he wants to leave as quickly as possible.
"Sundown," Grandmother Netts says quickly, too quickly. "We never sail in daylight. It upsets the children."
As if summoned by her words, small faces appear in the dark windows around the plaza. They're child-faces, but wrong somehow—too pale, too still, with eyes that reflect light like a nocturnal animal's. One of them opens its mouth in what might be a yawn, revealing rows of tiny, sharp teeth.
Thunder rumbles overhead though the sky was clear when we descended into the village. The villagers all turn their faces skyward at once, mouths opening to catch drops that taste like brine.
I catch Thoktar's eye and see my own unease reflected there, along with cold fury at Grandmother Netts' words. We have no choice but to wait, nowhere else to go, but every instinct honed by years of surviving as a slave screams that Penmorvah is a trap disguised as sanctuary.
The child-faces in the windows smile down at us with their needle teeth, and somewhere in the growing darkness, something that might not be thunder begins to call back from the deep water beyond the harbor.
23
THOKTAR
The harbor stretches before us in the fading light, dark water lapping against stone quays worn smooth by centuries of salt spray. The Fisher People's boat waits at the end of the longest pier—a weathered vessel with nets draped across her deck like funeral shrouds.
"Time to go," one of the crew calls, his voice carrying that same hollow sound as Grandmother Netts.
Rophan hefts his travel pack, the canvas heavy with supplies for his journey. His massive frame seems diminished somehow, not by fear but by the weight of what waits for him across the water.
"I have unfinished business back on Miltar," he says, his voice carrying the cold promise of violence to come. "Romas will pay for what he did."
