The male who entered the council hall was big, like they all were. Seven feet tall or more, shirtless, wearing a layered fur and leather apron-sized loin cloth that had small bags and lines of bone beads and teeth hanging off it, leather boots up to his knees.
Primitive and barbaric, he carried a massive ax. The thing was bigger than the seat of a chair. With his round hairless head and flat nose and blunt hewn chin, people underestimated his race as primitive. This one looked like he went into every battle headfirst. His face and chest bore the split seam slashes of scars, like leather pieces fit together without stitching.
Corrin's grandfather had told her the Orki were not fools. Their brutish faces may look monstrous and simple minded, but in reality, the Originals were quick-witted, with the ability to learn and remember at a rate that far surpassed the human mind. They could be astute bargainers when it came to trade and acted swiftly if cheated.
Three off-world powers had tried to enslave them and use them for war fodder, and three off-world powers had crumbled beneath Orki rebellions.
"Talk what?" he said in common. "Talk how you die? By ax or by warg. Is decided." His pointed ears twitched in opposite directions as he looked around the room, counting heads.
"We want to trade, will surrender and trade," said the boss, his voice steady though his face was pale.
"No trade. Broke law. Die." He lifted his ax at the man. "Die here. Die there." He pointed outside. "You die. Choose now."
"No!" the boss barked. "I haveinternat—gold, credits. Good here and off planet. More than anyone could need. Treasure!
There are women for your beds and slaves for your fields.
Trade!" The boss insisted.
The giant male shrugged. "You die here." Despite his size, the Orki was fast. The boss had his sword up, but he was too drunk and the ax was already moving. He tried to duck. Instead of his head being cleaved off at the neck by the razor-sharp weapon, he lost everything above his eyes.
Corrin fell back, crying out, shocked at that sight. The violence caused a wave of sound to erupt, a roar in her ears. Down on the floor, trying to catch her breath, her body turned to jelly. Men yelling. Pain. Fear. Blades clashing to the floor. It was a slaughterhouse, the smell of blood and guts filling the air with a grotesque perfume.
That ax—through a man's head like a knife through butter.
Impossible.
She couldn't watch. Couldn't breathe. Opened her mouth, panting. Her head swimming and belly ill. What could she do? Her luck had left her tied up. In shock and fear, Corrin pissed herself, her bladder just letting go after holding on all day long.
An ax had cut the top of the boss's head off! She'd never get the image out of her head. What would they do when they came to her? Slice her in half?
If the mercenaries had gone to her village, they would have done the same to the farmers and fishermen. Used their war tools to just chop, chop them down like wheat in farmer Nolan's field.
Drunk and outclassed, the mercenaries fell to the better soldiers. The Originals ignored all pleas for mercy and calls of surrender.
Corrin heard thumping, slashing, screams of agony, of life leaving the body. But it went fast. The silence was sudden. Another shock. She lay there for minutes, breathing through her mouth, unable to get enough air, with tears on her face. For hours, for seconds. She couldn't tell.
The silence was as horrible as the chaos.
The smell. She could smell the fresh death. The Orki used the village meeting house as a slaughtering barn.
Eyes tight, shivering,and panting, Corrin felt something cold and damp touched the back of her neck, between her shoulder blades. She screamed. Some raiders' blood and gore dripped on her, but she couldn't move or escape. She'd drown in the corpses.
Warm breathy wetness slathered over her, a long
lick.
Trapped, bucking in her bindings, Corrin tried to escape it. What was it?What was it?
A weight pinned her down and more of that strange sensation followed. It was like being rubbed by a thick, rough cloth, from the small of her back to her neck. Shaking, frozen, not sure what it could be, her mind not processing, Corrin was going to turn over and look, but stopped when she felt teeth move around her body.
It was an Orki beast, going to eat her, bite her in half. She shouted obscenities as teeth moved around her. She jerked, wiggled, then stilled, because there were teeth at her waist and her back and when she moved they tightened—Was it eating her?
The huge, wolfish creature picked her up in its mouth. Her chest to her pelvis was inside its maw. It didn't bite down, but she felt teeth, teeth everywhere. "Don't eat me, don't eat me, don't eat me!" She cried over and over, her brain locked in the horror of being bitten in half by a war beast.
She couldn't kick, couldn't beat it with her arms, couldn't fight. Eyes shut tight, crying real tears, Corrin was carried out of the hall and outside by an alien animal.
And dropped at the feet of the Orki with the ax. He said something in his language, barking intermixed with guttural, harsh noises.
