Chapter 6: Snowed in

“No, no,” Ghorza chided, lowering her bow and shaking her head. “You must roll your tongue, like this.” She demonstrated, making a purring noise with her tongue, then gestured for Rian to have a try.

“Ratul,” he said, doing his best to mimic her. “Ratul da kare khut.”

“Better,” she said with a chuckle. “You speak bad Orcish, keesahn. Your words too gentle. You sound like ... drunk Orc whispering to baby.”

“Alright, alright,” he grumbled as he watched her stride ahead of him through the trees. “I only just started learning, and it’s not like you all speak my language perfectly either. Sometimes I can barely understand you.”

“But you do understand,” she said, her braided hair whipping through the air as she turned to look back at him.

“More or less,” he replied, pausing to gather some medicinal flowers from a bush.

Sharog had tasked them to go out into the woods in search of game and herbs. Ghorza was to hunt, and Rian was to forage, having proven his ability to identify different plants. It seemed that there was still some stockpiling to do before winter set in and such resources became scarce.

Ghorza was a lot more talkative and personable than Urami, so he was keeping her entertained with some idle chatter, and she seemed to be enjoying his company. It was an excellent opportunity to learn more Orcish words and phrases, too. She was more amused by his attempts to learn the language than anything, so she was more receptive to teaching him than the others. His goal was not to learn to speak perfectly, of course, but to understand. They clearly didn’t think him capable of learning their language, so if he could pick up just enough to eavesdrop, he might be able to glean some useful insights into their lives. Much was said that they did not want him to hear.

His Orcish chaperone was hunting with a large bow almost as long as he was tall, the draw so heavy that he doubted whether a normal man would be able to fire it. Even the arrows were huge, tipped with a heavy iron point. The weather was cooling, and her outfit was less sparse as a result. On top of her usual getup, she wore a fur-lined jacket, leather pants, and a long cloak fashioned from soft wolf pelt.

They were deep in the valley, the pine trees no different from the way they had appeared upon his arrival at the settlement, just as green and leafy as ever. The branches swayed in a distinctly cold wind today, and he was beginning to wonder whether he should ask for a cloak of his own. The velvet jacket wasn’t enough to keep out the chill, but exercise was keeping him warm for the time being.

Unlike Urami, Ghorza didn’t rush ahead and force him to keep a ruthless pace. She lingered closer, always keeping one eye on him lest another wolf appear to carry him away. It was wonderful just to watch her move. She was so agile, her impossibly long legs carrying her through the undergrowth like she was floating, her wide hips swinging with each step. The fur cloak flowed out behind her, tragically obscuring much of her from view, but it could do little to mask her grace.

As he picked more flowers and stowed them in his leather satchel, she froze, raising a finger to her lips in a gesture for him to be quiet. He strained to listen, but the only thing he heard was the creak of her bow as she nocked an arrow and drew it, aiming at something beyond his sight. A green arm emerged from beneath the fur cloak, bicep bulging. The arrow loosed with a whistle and landed with a thud, the Orc dancing away to retrieve it. By the time Rian reached her, she was already lifting a dead rabbit, pulling the arrow from it and handing the limp creature to him.

“One for stew pot,” she declared with a smile.

Rian tied a string around its back legs and draped it over his shoulder.

“What do you call a rabbit in Orcish?” he asked.

“Lapa,” she replied.

“You shoot rabbit with bow,” Rian said, stringing together the Orcish words.

“That was almost complete sentence,” Ghorza replied with a grin. “You getting better, turnip boy.”

“I defer to the master,” he added with a sarcastic bow. “How did you all learn to speak my language anyway?” he added, hurrying a little to catch up with her as he secured his satchel. “You, Sharog, and Urami can all speak it quite well. Even some of the Orcs I met in the village can make themselves understood.”

“Some traders who visit our lands south of valley speak this way,” she explained, keeping her eyes on the trees.

“You get traders from the Kingdom all the way down there?”

“Perhaps not native to your lands, but maybe they also trade with your people,” she replied with a shrug. “Shamans say it important to learn tongue of enemy. If you cannot speak, you cannot make terms. Cannot challenge. Cannot accept surrender. Laws of our Gods say we must treat with enemy fairly.”

“That makes sense,” Rian replied, watching her leap deftly over a felled log. He followed her over the moss-covered wood, having to clamber over it. “I suppose I’m just surprised. I didn’t know much about Orcs before I met you. I mean ... before you took me captive. We heard stories and hearsay about savage beasts from foreign lands, but nobody had ever seen an Orc in person. If you’d asked me, I would have told you it was an old wives’ tale intended to scare unruly children into behaving. That said, I wasn’t exactly kept abreast of important news.”

“They say Orcish people savage?” Ghorza repeated with a snicker. “We find you living with pigs. You not know how to bathe.”

“Well, that’s maybe a matter of opinion,” he mumbled.

Quick as a flash, she nocked another arrow and let it fly, a thud telling Rian that it had found its mark. She stooped into the bushes and produced another fat rabbit, handing it to him, and he added it to the collection.

“I might get blood on this nice jacket,” he warned as he tied the animal’s legs.

“Then you wash it.”

“I am the clothes washer, that’s true.”

They continued deeper into the valley, Rian practicing his Orcish as much as Ghorza would allow, building his repertoire of words and phrases. He was not an educated man – no serf was, but memorizing the words through repetition wasn’t difficult when he had little else to occupy his time with. There were no crop rotations and taxes to keep track of anymore.

“The sky is getting rather gray,” Rian warned, glancing up at the ominous clouds above them. The day had started off with a blue sky, but a storm front had rolled in quickly, forming a dark canopy over their heads. “Do you think maybe we should turn back?”

“This worries you?” Ghorza replied, following his gaze. “Is just rain.”

“Well, probably snow,” he explained. “You see those gray clouds up there? That’s either freezing rain or, more likely, a snowstorm coming our way. I know that you don’t have much experience with snow, but we get it every year where I come from, and that’s the kind of sight that sends us packing.”

“We have much time?”

“We should probably hurry.”

“Can little legs keep up?” she asked with a smirk. “Maybe Ghorza carries turnip boy?”

“Less talking, more walking,” he complained.

“I have never seen snow,” Ghorza marveled, pausing to raise a hand. A snowflake floated down to land in her green palm, and she examined it with the curiosity of a child, watching it melt away into nothing. “It is beautiful.”

“It’s going to get a lot less beautiful when it starts coming down faster,” Rian warned, breathing hard as he matched her loping pace. “Damn it,” he grumbled, glancing around. The air was full of falling snow now, dusting the tops of the pine trees and settling on the bare earth, the clouds roiling above the valley walls as they threatened to burst open. “I don’t think we’re going to make it back in time. We might have to make camp and wait it out until it clears.”

“I brought no tent,” Ghorza replied. “But there are shallow caves in walls of valley. We could take shelter there.”

“Sounds better than trying to walk home in a storm,” Rian replied. “Lead the way.”

They trekked higher up the sloping valley, heading for the cliff face in the distance that rose up above the tree tops. Rian collected firewood and kindling as he went, trying to bundle up as much dry wood as he could carry before the snow soaked it through. With every minute that passed, the powder came down heavier, until it was forming drifts as deep as his ankles and obscuring his view.

When they reached the cliff, they walked along its base for a distance, the snow making the fallen rocks and old landslides that were scattered around the area more treacherous. Even the agile Ghorza had to choose her footing carefully so as not to roll an ankle.

Eventually, they came across an opening in the rock face, Ghorza ducking inside to check that it wasn’t home to a bear or a family of wolves. Once she had declared it safe, she waved Rian in, and the pair hurried inside.

Immediately, the sounds of swaying branches and whistling wind faded out, replaced with the hollow echo of their footsteps reflecting off the rock walls. The dim sunlight made it a good distance into the cave, spilling through its mouth to illuminate the shadowy interior. It wasn’t very deep at all. The back wall was only two dozen paces away, and the ceiling was just tall enough that Ghorza could stand without hitting her head. It was more of an alcove than a cave, really, the rock walls taking on an odd quality that resembled melting wax. The floor was relatively flat, but it was strewn with small stones, Rian kicking a few aside to send them rolling away.

He turned to look back, the bundle of sticks and branches that he carried under his arm creaking, watching the snow fall beyond the cave’s mouth. Ghorza was right – it was rather beautiful, as long as one wasn’t under it. The white powder was dusting the trees, his high vantage at the base of the cliff providing an admirable view of the valley below as the forest faded into the haze.

“How long this usually lasts?” Ghorza asked, doing a lap around the small cave as she took in her environs. “Hours? Not days, I hope...”

“A few hours, maybe,” Rian replied. “If it lasts until nightfall, we may need to spend the night here. It’ll be hard going if it keeps up much longer than that. At least you wore boots today,” he added with a nod to her footwear. “I wouldn’t want to go barefoot in this. You’d be liable to lose some toes.”

She shrugged off her cloak, brushing some clinging powder from its shoulders and shaking it out. It seemed that the fur had shielded her from the worst of it. The jacket and pants that she wore beneath had been kept as dry as a bone.

Rian was not so lucky. His velvet jacket and silk breeches were soaked to the skin with melted snow. He took off the jacket and set it on the floor along with the two rabbits, then got to work. The first order of business was getting a fire going, so he collected up some choice rocks from the cave floor and built a small circle, selecting the driest kindling from his bundle.

“Here,” Ghorza said, fishing inside one of her many pouches and producing some flint. She handed it to him, and after a few quick strikes, he had a fire sputtering. He tended it, shielding it with his hands and blowing on it, feeding it some of the larger sticks when it was hungry enough. The licking flames soon cast their wavering glow on the cave walls, casting everything in an orange light, sending shadows dancing across the floor.

Rian was shivering, and he drew close to the fire, rubbing his hands and holding them out. He sagged as he felt something heavy drape across his shoulders, feeling soft fur against his cheeks. Ghorza had given him her cloak, the long garment piling on the floor at his feet.

“Thank you,” he said through chattering teeth, pulling it a little tighter so that it enclosed him.

“You will be pain to carry back if you get sick,” she said with a smirk. Being dry, she didn’t stick as close to the fire, instead walking over to the entrance to look out at the scenery. She extended a hand beyond the mouth, letting more snowflakes land on her palm.

“What’s your first impression of snow?” Rian asked.

“Troublesome,” she replied.

“It’s really coming down hard out there. On days like this, even the bailiff wouldn’t expect us to work the fields. We’d head inside and hide away in our homes, maybe cook some pottage and stick close to the fire.”

“We did not heed your warning,” she said. “Snow may cause more trouble than we thought.”

“You’ll adapt,” he replied, using a stick to stoke the fire. “Hey, are you hungry? We have a pair of nice fat rabbits waiting over there...”

“This time, I cook,” she insisted as she strode over to lift them by the string that bound their legs. “Keesahn is good with fancy food, but fresh meat over fire is Orcish specialty.”

“Be my guest,” he replied, still huddled beneath her furs.

She skinned the rabbits with her bare hands as easily as he might take off a sock, then cleaned them with a knife at the cave mouth, impaling them on a suitably sturdy stick. That done, she crouched beside the fire, slowly turning the rabbits as she held them above the flames.

“You seem to like me more than the others,” Rian mused, watching the fat sizzle as it dripped from the meat. “Why is that?”

“Why I like keesahn?” she repeated, giving him a smirk. “It has been nice having someone to cook, clean, and bathe us. Even Urami is starting to like you more, as I predict. You impress her with squiring and throwing of stones.”

“I do have my moments of excellence,” he replied.

“Turnip boy is funny,” she added. “You keep life from getting boring. You have funny words, act strange, dress weird, surprise me often with unexpected things you do.”

“Technically, you’re the ones who dress me,” he said. “I can’t be held responsible for your sense of fashion. The silk breeches are an odd choice.”

“Keesahn is cute,” she added with a more earnest smile, her yellow eyes reflecting the firelight as they met his gaze. “Like wolf pup. I would be sad now if you died, I think.”

“Well, that’s always a positive sign,” he muttered. He considered how much he wanted to reveal for a moment, wary of getting too comfortable around her and spoiling a good thing. “You, Sharog, Urami – you’ve not mistreated me. You’ve never beaten me or hurt me. Why is that?”

“Why we do such things?” she asked with a frown, cocking her head.

“Where I come from, it’s not uncommon,” he replied as he stared into the flames. “Someone being taken prisoner and forced into servitude might expect to be treated badly – beaten or starved for not cooperating.”