Varek felt the pull tighten behind his ribs. Protective. Brave. Soft and fierce at once.
"What are your names?"
The woman's eyes narrowed. He could see her weighing the cost of answering against the cost of refusing.
"Mab," she said finally. "He's Tibbs. She's Annie."
Mab. The name settled into him like a stone dropping into still water. Short. Plain. The kind of name a kitchen gave to a girl it didn't expect to matter.
It mattered now.
"The boy keeps the knife," Varek said. "No one is going to hurt him for defending you."
The woman—Mab—didn't move, but her shoulders loosened by a fraction.
"And us?" she asked. "What happens to us?"
"You come with me," he said.
Her face didn't change, but he saw the flicker in her eyes. She was thinking about the stories, the ones humans told each other about what orcs did with captured women. He could smell the sharp spike of fear beneath the sweat and flour dust.
"The children too," she said. Not a question.
"The children too."
Annie made another small sound against the shelving. Mab's hand found her without looking, pulling the girl against her side.
Varek stepped back, giving them room. Giving her room. The pull was a living thing in his chest now, demanding that he close the distance, that he put his hands on her and know the weight of her against his palms. He held himself still through an act of will that would have impressed his old weapons-master.
"Walk behind me," he said. "Don't stop. Don't speak to anyone."
Mab nodded once, short and sharp. She pulled Annie tighter against her side and put her free hand on Tibbs's shoulder, keeping the boy close. The knife was still in his grip, but pointed down now, forgotten.
Varek turned and walked out of the pantry.
The kitchen was worse than he'd left it. Drogga had finished his sweep, which meant the bodies had been moved. Draggedto the side, stacked against the wall near the cold hearth like cordwood waiting for the fire. The head cook was on top, his face slack and gray, his apron soaked through with blood that had already gone dark.
Varek didn't slow. He heard Mab's footsteps falter, heard the girl's sob cut off into a strangled whimper, heard the boy's breathing turn sharp and fast. But Mab kept them moving. He could feel her behind him, shepherding the children past the bodies, past the overturned pots, past the blood that had pooled in the grooves between the flagstones.
Good. She understood.
The yard door was still open. Varek turned away from it, toward the passage that led deeper into the holding. Not the route his men had used to herd the other survivors into the courtyard. A different path. Through the servants' corridor, past the linen stores, into the main keep where the stone walls were thicker and the floors were clean.
He didn't look back, but he tracked her by sound. The soft pad of her clogs on the flagstones. The hitch in Annie's breathing. The careful footsteps of a boy trying not to run.
The corridor was narrow and dim, lit by arrow-slit windows that let in slices of gray morning light. Varek's shoulders brushed the walls on both sides. Behind him, the three humans had room to walk abreast, but they stayed single file. Mab in the middle, a hand on each child.
Eventually, the main keep opened around them.
Varek had been in enough human holdings to know the shape of them. The great hall at the center, the family quarters above, the kitchens and servants' warrens tucked away where the lord wouldn't have to see the people who kept him fed and warm. This one was larger than most. Lord Cresswick had done well for himself, raiding orc settlements and skimming border tariffs. The tapestries on the walls were new. The rushes on the floorwere fresh. The chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling held more candles than a mountain village would burn in a month.
His men had made themselves at home.
The great hall was full of orcs. Thirty of them, maybe more, spread across the long tables where Cresswick's household had eaten their last meal. Some were eating now—bread and cheese and the cold remains of whatever had been meant for breakfast. Others were cleaning weapons, checking gear, talking in low voices that fell silent as Varek entered.
Drogga was at the head table, his boots up on the lord's own chair, a chicken leg in one hand and a grin on his face. The grin faded when he saw what Varek had brought with him.
"Brother." Drogga's boots came down. His eyes moved from Varek to Mab to the children and back again. "Found some strays?"
