And gods knew she’d tried, over these past seven years. She’d tried yelling and threatening the men. She’d spent eye-watering amounts of her precious coin on bars and locks and latches. She’d planted thorny shrubs all around her property, in hopes ofreducing access from the surrounding forest. She’d desperately fought to build her strength and stamina, and had spent countless hours practicing with her woodcutting axe, swinging it toward her door at just the right height to meet a man’s neck.
But it still wasn’t enough. It had never been enough. Not against the ever-present, ever-terrifying threats that closed tighter around her isolated little cottage with every passing year. Threats of fire. Angry mobs. Hunters with longbows. Inspectors and officers. Soldiers. Kidnappers. Murderers.
And lately, at least once every week, trespassers like this. Bearing the looming, impending possibilities of all those other threats with them.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” came another man’s voice, too close on the other side of Raye’s barred, papered-over front window. “Wild orc-drunk wench, yelling and raging at even a friendly visit, claiming she’s only a harmless little mother. The village down the green would’ve run her off by now, but she’s s’posed to be the best weaver south of Dusbury, an’ the old coots don’t want to lose their cozy pantaloons.”
Raye squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, fought down her racing heartbeat. She’d heard it all so many times before, and it meant nothing. Nothing. It didn’t matter that she’d had to stop weaving the beautiful, intricate tapestries she’d loved, in favour of the plain, finespun wool every housewife wanted. It didn’t matter that the entire nearby village wanted to run her off, or that people only spoke to her when necessary, and avoided her eyes in the market. It didn’t matter if they all thought she was mad, it didn’t, it didn’t…
“And her orc spawn?” one of the trespassers asked. “You ever see that little bastard?”
Raye’s heartbeat blared higher, and she silently, desperately prayed that Svein was deep in his tunnel, still with his hands over his ears. That damned war between orcs and men had beenover for five years now, replaced by a realm-wide treaty that supposedly guaranteed orcs the right to live free and in peace — but in places like this, people hadn’t forgotten so easily. Orcs were still enemies. Monsters.Spawn.
“Nah, she mostly keeps him locked inside,” came the other man’s reply. “But a few villagers have caught sight of him. Said he’s already as big as a man, with vicious claws and teeth. Damned dangerous, it is. Bastard’s probably going to break free and kill ’em all someday.”
Raye’s eyes were stinging, her cold hands wringing helplessly together, because yes, Svein was big for his age. So much bigger than she’d expected, already almost up to her shoulder, with far more strength than he knew how to handle. But in every other way, he was still a normal seven-year-old, curious and playful and eager to please. He’d been a kinder, sweeter son than she’d ever imagined, and hearing foul men spew ignorant lies about him always felt like a kick in the gut, a knife to the heart. Svein deserved so much better. Better than that ignorant hateful village, this cramped prison of a cottage, that awful tunnel under his bed.
“And the father?” came the next question, grating through Raye’s ears. “Is he still around? Thought those orc bastardswantedtheir sons.”
Raye’s heartbeat spiked again, loud enough that she couldn’t hear the other man’s answer. But she could have spoken it for him, could have rushed over and hollered it out the door. Yes, the orcs always wanted their sons. They never left them behind, even if the fool mothers wanted to keep them. No, the father would be watching, waiting, biding his time — and someday soon, he would come back to take what was his.
And the worst part was, these awful men weren’t wrong, were they? Because over these past seven years, Kalfr had never stopped coming. No matter what Raye had done.
And Raye had done so much. She’d rejected all Kalfr’s visits and pleas and apologies. She’d refused to read the constant stream of letters he’d sent, and had tossed them all in the fire. She’d sent away the multiple other orcs who’d come on his behalf, sometimes even with women in tow. And the last time Kalfr had come to her in person, Raye had been panicked and exhausted from a near-miss the night before, when a four-year-old Svein had run into a man in the front garden. And she’d screamed that if she ever saw Kalfr’s face again, or received one more letter, she would take Svein across the eastern sea to Mirkandia — her grandmother’s ancestral home — and never bring him back.
Raye hadn’t missed the way the threat had struck Kalfr, blazing hurt and alarm and censure through his eyes, and burning a bitter, angry growl through his throat. For an instant, she’d thought maybe he would strike her where she’d stood, or bind her or kidnap her or kill her — but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d spun and walked away, his back hard and straight, his clawed hand gripped tight at his sword hilt.
And in the weeks afterwards, he’d still kept coming. He had never,everstopped coming.
But thanks to that last threat of Raye’s, he only came late at night, a few times a month, and he didn’t make attempts to see Raye or Svein, or speak. Instead, he would rap at the cottage door, brief and quiet, and leave again. And once Raye had gone to open the door, her heartbeat lurching into her throat, she would find a basket of food, or a small bag of coins, or a stack of warm furs.
At first, she’d tried to just leave the gifts there, but one time they’d been stolen by a trespasser, and another time, Svein had smelled the basket outside, and rushed out to snatch it. He’d been young enough then to not realize who had left the basket, but it still had been far too close for comfort — what if Kalfrhad been waiting and watching, planning to steal Svein away? So Raye had finally relented, and started taking the gifts. Eating the food, spending the coin, sleeping under the furs.
But it had only sunk her deeper into the mire, because as Svein had grown older, new gifts had begun to arrive with the rest. A thick fur cloak, the kind the orcs often wore. Sturdy leather boots, with room at the end for clawed toes. Even a pair of wooden swords, which Raye had desperately wanted to burn — but Svein had crowed with such pleasure that she hadn’t had the heart. And then, only a few months past, a book with drawings and descriptions of Orc Mountain, which Svein had eagerly pored over every day since.
And so Raye knew, heavier with every passing moon, that the men were right. Kalfr would never forget. And someday, when she was least expecting it, he would come, and take Svein away. Forever.
The men outside were still saying as such, tromping around in Raye’s garden as if they owned it, while loudly pontificating about whether or not the orc father would kill the fool weaver in the process. Or maybe only rut a new son upon her, since she seemed to like them so much. Give her a new spawn to raise, to keep her occupied, until he came and took that one, too.
“You have to give it to the sly bastards, though,” one of the men said, with something almost admiring in his voice. “Get the woman to do all the dirty work, skimping and starving herself to raise and feed that insatiable beast. And then swoop in, pick up your ready-made soldier, and fuck her full of the next one.”
The other man laughed, as though it was all a hilarious jest, as though it wasn’t Raye’s entire damnedlife. And curse her, but she shot a searching glance down at her narrow wrists and knobby knuckles on the loom, and then lower down, to the way her threadbare dress hung off her sharp shoulders. She’d once been a plump, shapely woman, with full breasts and soft curvesall over — but that had been before the years of nursing her ravenous orc son, and yes, the years of trying to feed him, too. Skipping her own meals, working later and later into the night, weaving until her back and shoulders ached. Forgoing cutting or buying firewood, too, apart from what she needed to cook, because Svein didn’t get cold the way she always did these days, and that just freed up more time to weave, to work, to sacrifice herself on the altar of her beautiful son.
And she didn’t regret it. Shedidn’t. So why — why was she —
She wasweeping, oh gods. The water suddenly escaping her eyes, streaking hot and betraying down her cheeks. While her breaths heaved, her shoulders quaking, her face hot and sticky against her cold clammy hands. And her thoughts swarmed with a stark desperation, a bitter vision of another choice, another life. A life where she could have had food in her belly, a fire in her grate, a father for her son, maybe even another child or two. And maybe, most foolish of all, a warm body in her bed, strong arms to hold her safe against the dark. A family.
The sobs wouldn’t stop coming, wrenching hot and ugly from Raye’s throat, far too loud in the silence. And curse it, that was a telltale scraping sound from Svein’s bedroom, and he wasn’t supposed to see her like this, she’d worked so hard to keep him from seeing her like this…
“Mama?” came Svein’s soft voice, as his pointed grey face peered around his door — and then a pattering of footsteps as he rushed toward her, and hurled himself onto her lap. He was almost too big for it now, but Raye clutched his lean body close anyway, and helplessly fought to choke back the awful convulsive sobs. Her son was still here. He was still safe.
“It’s all right, Mama,” he told her, with a reassuring pat to her back, though tears glimmered in his eyes, too. “The men are gone. I can smell.”
He could smell. Just one of the many ways he was still Kalfr’s son, despite all Raye’s efforts, and she betrayed a loud sniff, even as she attempted a smile toward Svein’s worried face. “Thank you, love,” she told him, though her voice hitched. “You did such a good job hiding, too.”
Svein solemnly nodded, and carefully wiped his clawed hand at Raye’s wet cheek. “Next time, you come hide too,” he told her. “Cover your ears with me.”
Raye attempted another smile, a dismissive wave of her hand. Because there was no way she could hide in there with him, the tunnel was barely large enough to fit him alone these days, and her attempts to dig it deeper had been entirely futile. Besides, she always needed to be listening, to be on guard, to make sure it wasn’t fire this time, or soldiers, or worse.
