The deep thrum of Uthur’s voice twined through her flesh like roots through the earth. Mika’s heartbeat slowed, syncing perfectly with the beat of his Song. And though she knew she should be disgusted—should be cringing back and decrying his heresy—she could not. Though a part of her tried, she couldn’t bring herself to hear evil in it. There was simply none to be found.
It was…beautiful.
A tingling sensation like light glimmering just beneath her skin started up at her scalp and trailed down her spine. Filled her veins with its invisible glow. And all the while, the beast flooded her mind with relief and joy, its wounds mending themselves before her eyes. Then, almost too soon, it was over. Fluidly it rose to its feet, and Uthur followed suit…a hint of a smile playing at his lips. If he felt at all awkward about being nearly naked, he didn’t show it. But Mika most certainly felt awkward about it, and did her best to avert her gaze… watching out of the corner of one eye. Uthur turned to the other prince.
“Does it count if it’s still alive?” wondered Retga.
“I have no idea.” Uthur’s tone was troubled.
Mika had a thought.
“They said the one who brings them back the skull is the winner, right?”
Retga huffed, which Mika took for confirmation.
“But they didn’t say the skull has to be separated from the body and stripped of flesh, did they?”
When the pair was silent, she allowed herself a more direct glance…her cheeks flushing hot before she’d even turned her eyes to them. Uthur frowned. But Retga’s lip twitched upward to one side. Somewhere behind her, an orc whose name Mika didn’t know barked with laughter.
While the Fleshsinger prince stayed behind to head the healing and recovery efforts, Retga lead the conscious and able-bodied back to Hunter’s Hall. Mika rode in the midst of their procession with their green flag of victory, high upon the back of the beast. It followed her suggestions readily, happy to comply so long as she let it tug leaves from passing branches. They took a brief detour, stopping at a place called a Hunter’s Station, where Retga called for more healers to send to the forest of thorns.
“I…I don’t understand,” said the bespectacled woman when they made it back to Hunter’s Hall. She stared agape at the creature as it peered down at her over the courtyard walls, flowers spilling from its antlers.
Retga repeated her story, and the others corroborated it.
The hunter adjusted her glasses.
“Well I, er…there is no precedent for this situation, exactly. But as it was your thrall which won the quarry and yours which brought it back…and there can be no doubt that curing the beast does as much good as killing it, if not perhaps more…” she paused and took a deep breath, eyes still riveted on the beast. “And so…and so I deem it within rights to declare Thrall Uthur the victor.
Mika—who’d tossed away her fabric wads some time ago—slapped her hands over her ears as the victorious orcs celebrated and the losers commiserated by becoming very, very loud. At a gesture from Spectacles Orc, they quieted.
“I would act fast, if I were you,” warned the hunter, exchanging a significant look with Retga.
“Thank you, Ahjir ab,” said the prince, making a handsign by tapping her fingers to her heart and drawing them outward. Then, with a nod to her people and a glance up at Mika, she lead them from the courtyard.
~*~
“It’s nothing to be afraid of, truly,” said Ume, hours later as Mika trailed behind her along a narrow bridge. “I’m sure they’ll let you use the cut you already have, and they’ll heal you up right after.”
“That’s part of what I’m afraid of,” said Mika, though it wasn’t entirely true. It should be, but it wasn’t. Catching herself wistfully hoping it’d be Uthur to heal her, she stifled her thoughts to blankness.
“I just don’t understand why there has to be so much blood involved,” she said to distract herself, scrunching her nose. But Ume just giggled, and Eshge—who’d been in a particularly dour mood since the return of the hunting party—remained silent.
Mika had expected the scholas to lead her to the feast hall. It seemed the sort of place to hold important rites. But instead they brought her to one of the older-looking wings of the clannag and through an opening in the chasm wall. There, the stag beast—which had taken to following Mika between buildings—stopped to pluck at one of the juicier trees. The rest of them stepped into the cool darkness of a long corridor.
As they went, they passed high alcoves, all of them containing skulls taller than Mika, some taller even than two Mikas. All of them were beautifully treated, with intricate carvings and crystals and shining glaze.
“This way,” said Ume. The main corridor opened at its end into a huge cavern, glittering blue with glow worms. But the orcs led her instead through an entryway to their left and down a curving hall. Slowing, they turned through another arched opening, and into a lush chamber of stone.
It was occupied by the other orcs and elf of Thrall Uthur, who roared their approval at the sight of them. But this time, Mika had come prepared—already wearing soft sponge-moss earplugs provided by her fellow scholas. Together and at either side of her, Ume and Eshge escorted her down a central aisle.
Plants lined the walls and path, and Mika guessed they must take their nourishment, somehow, from the ever-present glow of the mists. The lanterns were caged in flush garnet, their own fuchsia illumination intermingling and refracting in the fog.
Reaching the aisle’s end, they climbed a stairway leading up to an open balcony. Near its center stood a small stone statue of a horned and winged beast, rather strangely placed. Beyond was the massive cavern Mika had glimpsed before, and crowding below were all the orcs of Clan Dragha, their thunderous greeting amplified so greatly that the earplugs hardly mattered. Mika flinched, her whole body trembling as thousands of eyes fixed upon her. She was glad she couldn’t see their markings. Her goggles were stowed away in an inner pocket, for she couldn’t wear anything on her head during the Rite.
“If you would, please, princess,” said Ume gesturing at the statue.
Mika glanced from her to the stone beast and back again.“Er…what?”
“If you would stand up upon it…please?”
Behind her, Eshge snorted.
Ume flashed them a dainty frown before looking pleadingly back to Mika. “It’s just that you’re so small, and he can’t be seen to kneel before the whole clan…not on a night such as this.”
Nose curling, Mika huffed as she lifted her skirts to climb up onto the statue’s flat head. Then Ume and Eshge stepped down to join the crowd, leaving her by herself in the sight of all.
But she wasn’t alone for long, for a moment later Uthur strode up to join her. He was dressed not in armor, but in full orcin finery—his sleeveless scale-leather tunic belted with a silk broadsash and a gem-studded chain. Her eyes fixed upon his tattoos…beasts rendered in curving lines terminated by the sharp points of teeth.
He stepped up before her, his gaze meeting hers, his expression strange, unreadable. She wondered in spite of herself what colors his markings displayed.
“Princess Mikanasha Raska G4I2,” he said, voice echoing though the cavern.
“Has been claimed in hunt by Thrall Uthur. On this day, she is our Blessed Quarry.”
Another roar of reaction rolled through the crowd, pierced the moss in Mika’s ears.
“We of Thrall Uthur honor Princess Mikanasha. We pour our blood to claim her, and we accept her blood into ours. When the hunted perish to nourish the thrall, they are reborn again greater than ever before. And so too on this day does Princess Mikanasha Raska G4I2 die to nourish the thrall. And so too on this day is she reborn anew, and greater.”
He paused then, and just as he and all the orcs of the thrall withdrew strips of leather or fabric to cover their noses, a broad figure darkened the entryway at the far end of the chamber, everyone’s eyes snapping his way as his command echoed through the chamber.
“Stop.”
Beside her, Uthur’s sun-on-stone scent intensified.
“I contest your victory,” called Alaric, lifting something in his right hand which glinted in the crimson light. “And I am sanctioned by the Council of Clans to settle it in combat…by direct challenge.”
Uthur stepped past Mika and down the stairs, blocking her view of Alaric.
“On what grounds do you contest? We have the right to know.”
The other prince scoffed. Mika cringed and slid from her perch to stand behind it, as though that could protect her.
“You did not even kill the beast. Its skull doesn’t hang in your halls. What’s more, you won it with the help of one you hadn’t yet claimed.”
“Technically, only orcs or orc-blooded without membership in the competing thralls are banned from participation in a challenge,” said Uthur, tone measured. As Mika peered over the statue’s wing, he stepped to the side, just enough to partially reveal her.
“If she’s a drop of orc blood in her veins, it’s well-hidden.”
Stalking forward, hands balled into fists, Alaric came to a stop a mere few hand’s breadths before Uthur.
“It doesn’t matter,” he snarled. “You don’t have the skull, and I have this.”
Again he lifted the thing in his hand—a stone with a crest carved into it, inlaid with rubies.
Uthur was silent for a moment.
“Who then, do you directly challenge?”
Alaric’s whole face lit up with wicked satisfaction, glinting golden eyes turned blood-red by the reflected lantern light. His toothy maw split open in a grin, tusks thrust forward.
“You.”
At once, everyone began to murmur amongst themselves, while a few others shouted in protest or jeered.
“Honorless muckpig!” shouted an orc she didn’t know. Off in the back somewhere, Threl spat a string of surprisingly colorful expletives.
Mika froze still as the stone beast she leaned against.
She had never heard Uthur Sing anything but Songs of Flesh. Of healing. But from everything she knew, from everything she could tell…not even the heathen orcs were so barbarous as to use Fleshsongs in combat. To even know such melodies. No…that was a distinctly human sin.
Again the iron-haired prince took time to answer.
“Very well,” he said, several nerve-wringing heartbeats later. “I accept.”
