Those men had done that.
And now they were dead. As it should be.
The town should be celebrating. Thankful.
Managing herself better, her sister-by-marriage rubbed at her arms as if cold, shoulders hunched to make her less noticeable, but she was not weeping and wailing dire predictions. She understood. They were saved and the bad men were dead.
The Orki saved them.
The war beasts wouldn't let them leave the center of town. Holding tight to Annabell's hand, Lurann tried different directions. "Everything will be all right at home. I just want my life around me again," she said.
That life was over. Annabell knew it. Nothing, would be the same again.
"Let the gloom find its own; there are enough rats in the barn,"Mama's voice echoed, admonishing her. Watching a pair of Orki males stack and drag bodies of dead men into the Gathering Lodge, Annabell bit her lip to keep from saying anything out loud.
Lurann was not the only village woman trying to leave the Gathering Lodge behind: Annabell saw others, frantic, trying to get past the Originals and out of the center of town. The Orki and their war beasts created a circle and slowly closed it, guiding survivors toward an area near the front of the Gathering Lodge.
The Orki had lit torches. Some were held, and some were stuck in the ground. They were ever-burning flames, a special fire that didn't consume what it burned, that came from somewhere in their lands. One of their many secrets.
Their presence changed the structure of things. Made the homes smaller, transformed all the people into little children, and made the mess of the raiders look like the acts of small carrion predators like ground foxes.
It had been years since she had seen any of the planet natives in town. Not since the council acted in bad faith. Her brothers took part, new and ambitious on the town council novices making rash-thinking changes.
Deciding to expand the town's borders, forgetting everything they knew about the law, Righteous Way's leaders thought they could talk their way over the primitive, simplistic Peace Contract their forefathers had set up.
Everything went wrong from there. Suspicious of the Orki because of their natural differences, the council fermented distrust and dislike, blaming the Originals for a greedy deal gone bad. Later, when Orki traders came through, the tension in the town escalated to the point where women went indoors to avoid them. Seeing them in her town again, Annabell realized how rare their trade visits had become. She hadn't seen the Orki since the day by the river when she was too young to run off on adventures.
Shaking off Lurann's hand, she turned, wanting to see them. As fluent in their language as a human could be, her papa was often part of the team that greeted the Orki when they came to trade for steel and other goods. Indulging Annabell, he took her to town with him to meet them. Seeing them walking the streets sparked forgotten memories. Things she shut away as silly and impossible. Some of them felt familiar.
She saw the darkest one by the front of the Gathering Lodge, a tied-up woman the raiders had captured, at his feet. The darkest skinned one who had come in the hall, she was sure she knew him, but the others?
Trying to get Annabell's hand back, Lurann protested, until an Orki and war beast moved between them. Fear taking over, Lurann darted away.
Directing them with grunts and pointing, the Orki herded the survivors into the circle of light. Many begged for mercy, or asked what the Orki would do to them, crying that they had broken no laws.
They hadn't. So why were they so terrified?
Annabell had no energy for being afraid anymore. She'd never been afraid of the Orki and would not start now. She wanted to go back inside the lodge; to check the bodies, to see the dead. It had been fast for them. They did not suffer like Benjere or his wife. They escaped the brutal treatment they deserved. But she needed to see and count them.
"Rats breed in the dark. All it takes is one to get twenty, and then a hundred,"Mama whispered in agreement.
Driven with a need to know, her steps stumbled. She had not slept, barely ate, and was beyond her limit. A smoldering lantern, Annabell felt herself going out. She fell. Lurann called her name as she forced herself upright. Her vision swam, the edges of her eyesight darkening, but she'd crawl on her hands and knees to see them dead if she had to.
A great big bristle-haired beast, bigger than every single cow on her farm, stepped in front of her. The color of coal and ash, with white teeth exposed in a smile, the creature blocked her escape.
The Orki weren't touching any of the women. They seemed alert to other things, watching the surrounding areas and that was an Orki thing, Annabell knew. They rarely acknowledged the existence of human women, as if they knew the stigma it could cause. Using the battering ram of their presence, they directed everyone into a group. The beasts they rode acted like the most intelligent herding dogs Annabell had ever seen, yipping, growling, warbling, and nosing-nudging human women as they needed. Silent under the watch of the men from the Steel Cities, wails rose in a chorus of fear and woe as the villagers carried on in front of the Orki.
The war beast blocking Annabell craned its neck to snuffle at her from head to toe. Sticking its nose where it wasn't welcome, it sniffed the places on her body where the salted sweat of fear and living had gathered. That great nose went right to her crotch, and Annabell fell forward, grasping at the animal's head and ears, falling onto it.
Using her weakness against her, nudging her away from everyone else, the war beast tipped its head down, plopping Annabel onto her bottom. Weak-legged, there was nothing left in her for resisting the beast's greater strength. She brought her hands up to push it away just in time to prevent the giant blanket of a pink tongue from licking up her chest to her face.
Groaning at the wet animal drool, she turned away.
She wasn't afraid. Not of these creatures. She'd spent too much time at her father's knee as a little girl learning the Orki stories. The humble life here on Dorsus could not be possible without them.
Nor was this her first assault with a war beast's tongue.
This couldn't be the same one, could it? Was this the Orki she had always thought of as hers?
