Prologue: The Haunted Barbarian

Note: Thanks to b0b for beta reading this! Thrak – Red Eye Tribal Lands, Larg Federation

The wind was cold. I barely felt it rippling across my scarred, red-brown skin. My greataxe lay across my lap, the twin, crescent blades glinting in the light. I stared at my wife's grave. A year and I could still hear her sweet laughter and see her lithe, human figure. Nine years she had been my wife, living in the tribal lands, adopting to our culture.

She made a better orc wife than many women of my tribe.

"The tribe is moving on," Bruk said from behind me.

I did not answer my brother. He led the Red Eyes now. I had lost the tribes leadership when I let our rivals, the Ghost Wolves, kidnap, rape, and murder my wife. No orc who couldn't protect his woman could protect the tribe. I could have fought the change in leadership, but everything had been ash then.

It still was.

My younger brother led the tribe. He was a fine leader, I suppose. I barely paid any attention. The last year was a fog. Serisia was gone. What was the point?

"Thrak?" Bruk growled. He grabbed my shoulders and turned me. I didn't fight. His swarthy face loomed over me. His eyes were a lighter shade of red than mine, blood-red to my dark crimson. His hair was cut short and thickly curled into a woolly mass. Bone ear spreaders and a nose plug made his face even fiercer. "When will you stop weeping over that human whore?"

A snarl escaped my lips. The rage burned inside me. I grabbed my brother's hand and threw it off. I rose, my greataxe gripped in one hand, the muscles of my body rippling. I was taller than my brother, bigger, the largest orc of the Red Eye Tribe. My brother stared at me with defiance, goading me.

Did he want me to rage?

The last time I had, thirty Ghost Wolves died—men, women, children. They had despoiled and murdered my sweet Serisia, and I had paid them back thirtyfold. I put the entire camp to death before my rage burned out.

I hated the bloodlust. Every orc boy dreamed of being a berserker, of letting the madness of battle so consume them that they lost all fear. But it wasn't only fear lost in the rage, but compassion. I hated that emptiness. There was a part of me that acutely remembered every moment of every rage and all the countless deaths I had wreaked.

"What do you want, Bruk?" I growled, fighting the darkness. "Speak, before your words give more offense."

Bruk spat. "We move to the spring pastures. Will you help your people? Or will you continue your pathetic vigil?"

"The tribe does not need me." Bitterness curdled my words. "You lead them. You protect them. I couldn't protect her. I can't protect the tribe!" My hands tightened on my ax. "Leave, brother, before you awaken me."

My brother hesitated, his eyes widened. He was no berserker, but he had seen my rages. "Fine. Waste your life grieving for that human—"

I snarled and lifted my ax. I fought against the rage. My wife was no whore. She was a fighter, a warrior in female form. She was fearless, her skin as fair as milk, and hair long and straight, flowing behind her like brown silk. She wouldn't want me to kill my brother, and probably half my tribe, by surrendering to the rage. But if my brother called her whore again, I would cleave his head from his shoulders.

My brother fled. He always was a coward.

I snarled, my hand gripping my ax. I wanted to swing it. I wanted to hew. I wanted my wife back. I turned and sat down before her grave, forcing myself back to calm. Killing wouldn't do any good. It wouldn't make me feel better. Nothing could replace the hole in my chest.

Now, that isn't true, Serisia whispered.

Her ghost appeared beside me in a kilt of ochre, red, and black, her breasts naked like an orc woman, her pink nipples pierced by bone. Other bone piercings adorned her ears, eyebrows, and nose. Other than her skin and delicate features of her face, she could have been an orc woman. Her spirit leaned against me, my skin tingling where her incorporeal, translucent form touched me.

I knew she wasn't real. I knew I had to be mad. But I spent so much time staring at her grave because she would appear to me here. Every day it grew harder to move from this spot. Only the necessities of living drove me away, and then I would always return with whatever flowers I could find. The stone cairn that marked her passing was dotted with petals.

You will find a way to live again, she whispered.

I believed she was a manifestation of my subconscious, the part of me that wanted to live and kept me from slipping into death. It was a strange phenomenon. But knowing she wasn't real didn't keep my heart from believing.

She pressed against my side, leaning her head on my shoulder, her brown eyes meeting mine. You need to stay. You can't go with them.

"I won't leave you," I told her. In the beginning, I could, but it grew harder and harder every time I left.

You will leave here, but not with them. She is coming to heal you.

"She?"

I found her. She is what you need. You have my blessing to live. I want you to be happy.

"I can't leave here. I can't leave you."

Serisia touched my chest above my heart. I won't leave you. I'll be with you. I'm in here. But don't worry, you'll like her. She's fearless and intelligent.

"Who is?"

Just wait. She'll come. She'll make you happy again, my love. That's all I want.

"Why do you keep me alive?" I asked, tears burning down my cheeks. "I could join you. A flick of my dagger, and then I would be happy with you."

Because you are needed.

Her hand stroked down my chest to my kilt and passed beneath it to caress my cock. I groaned as her incorporeal hand stroked me. Tingles ran up my cock as her cold hand touched me. The fuzzy electricity swelled my shaft until I tented the front of my kilt.

"What are you doing?" I groaned.

I need your cum to leave this place, she whispered.

"A phantom?" I groaned. Did that make her real? Her touch was delicious, stimulating, and more than a figment of my imagination. I leaned back and let out a growl as she stroked me faster. "But ... that will change you."

Do you trust me?

I wasn't even sure she was real. But phantoms were dangerous. All the stories told of the dangers of spirits ingesting cum or pussy juices. It would make them able to manifest corporeally, to interact with the world. But they were monsters and killers. They would haunt the people they loved in life, hurt them. Kill them.

"I ... I trust you," I groaned. "But..."

I would never hurt you, Serisia smiled as she lowered her lips. I want to be with you as long as possible. And then I'll wait for you and her.

"Her?" I growled. "You want to share me?"