Gyda Lionrock thinks her visit to Asclan Peak is for one reason and one reason alone-to procreate and finally welcome that child of her own. She could have never guessed she would also leave something behind inside the mountains, but it was her hear...
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Amira was a leader and I a follower. It wasn't spoken out loud, but during the hour or two we'd spent together, it had become clear.
I suppose I'd always been a follower in life. At home, I usually did everything Mom and my sisters told me to do. After all, I was the youngest out of my siblings, so it had always been like that.
Amira probably became independent far earlier than I had, coming from the other side of town. The poorer side. Her hands also felt so much rougher than mine, a sign she wasn't unacquainted with hard chores.
Not to say that I was a lazy person, because I wasn't. My life was always busy, filled with the many tasks I had to fulfill each day. Morning to evening. But as a child, I'd always been free, outside and playing. I wasn't the son my mother hoped to get as her last child, but I hadn't led a terrible life under her roof and commands. I knew she loved me and wanted what was best for me and my sisters and nieces.
I held Amira's hand tightly in mine when she grabbed the curtain and pulled it to the side before the both of us stepped into the unfamiliar.
It was a large room. An immense space which, just like the hallway, was illuminated by torches that hung on the stone gray walls, providing a soft orange light that danced on the decorated walls. But what was very different from the hallway was that, in here, it was packed with orcs. Tall, broad, muscular giants of men they were, all naked from the waist up, showing off mounds of muscles that seemed to be as solid as the room's rocky interior.
Goosebumps caused my hair to stand up straight now that I was in their presence.
A few of them played the drums, making that familiar deep pounding sound we'd been hearing ever since we went inside the mountain. Some orcs drank from goats' horns passing as cups, some were conversing, and some were laughing. But they had one thing in common: they were all looking at the group of women standing on the sideline. Watching them with dark, hungry eyes.
The presence of two new women didn't go unnoticed, either. The second the curtain fell back into place behind my back, a few orcs looked me straight in the eye. My heart went wild, thumping inside my chest as they observed me as I observed them. A few of them ran their tongue over their bottom lips like I always did when Mother had prepared a succulent piece of roast in the oven and hungrily watched it broil.
I felt like one of those roasts right now...
The fact the drums stopped playing only made it worse. I could hear my heartbeat whooshing in my ears.
The orcs did nothing further besides watching and, after a few seconds, they went on with what they were doing before, speaking a language I had never heard before, while their eyes stayed on the women.
"That's their language," Amira whispered in my ear. "It is orc-tongue."
