The Half's Way

Which means you're not leaving, either. Shauba's expression softened. "Making the Pikeskulls afraid is what you would do, Mikel," Shauba said. "That's not what Oruk would do. And Oruk is just one warchief. He doesn't lead all of the Red Tusk hillforts. Just Esker."

"But what if we could persuade..." Mikel's voice trailed off.

Lash was approaching, in a short brown dress that displayed her toned legs and enormous cleavage. "Shauba, I see you have fully embraced our ways," she said. Her lips twisted in slight disgust, as she took in Shauba's state of uncleanliness.

Shauba stood up hastily. She brushed mud off of her arms. "Uhh, those are bruises," she mumbled. "Not dirt."

"Come with me. I will show you the baths," said Lash.

Shauba eyed Mikel with uncertainty. "I need to feed Rash Girl first..."

"I'll have someone come to take care of him," Lash said. "He seems to have taken to your friend's music."

"It's no pickle," Mikel urged. "The pig will be fine."

Lash led Shauba across the busy village to the rocky bluff of the ridge. There, an orc opened an iron-gated doorway into the cliff. Shauba followed the orc leader up darkened stairs roughly carved into the ridge, until they emerged at the top. There were more huts at the top, and more grass and shrubbery than below, with fewer feet to trample the greenery.

The female orc entered a small yard blocked off by bushes. At its center was a pit of mud, colored the rich brown of hazelnut.              

Shauba gaped. "My father told me about mud baths!"

Lash doffed her beaded headdress, revealing a bald scalp. She pulled the dress over her head. She wore nothing underneath. Her body was a stunning blend of womanly curves and rock-like solidity.

Shauba stripped off her torn pants and shirt. She took a step towards the mud pit.

"No," Lash said sharply, as she herself waded into the muck. She pointed to a wooden tub in the corner. "Clean yourself there. Then join me."

Shauba splashed into the tub, scrubbing away days' worth of filth and dried sweat. She paid particular attention to her hair. Orcs were generally bald and hairless, which meant that they never needed to worry about cleaning dried mud out of their hair. When she was done, she bound her tresses on top of her head and padded across the yard to slide into the mud with Lash.

It was like nothing she'd ever felt. A warm blanket that caressed her every surface and crevice. She didn't touch the bottom of the pit. Instead, she floated. The mud slid across her nipples, made her skin tingle, licked between her legs and toes. She shuddered with pleasure, glancing over to where Lash floated, eyes closed.

"I suppose you're wondering why I brought you here," Lash said. She opened gold-flecked eyes, and Shauba realized that by here, Lash meant Esker.

"You brought me?" Shauba was dragged out of her moment of bliss. "I thought it was just custom, because I am the eldest child."

"Shagdab would never have allowed it. But I am his closest surviving kin. I am the voice of his will." Lash lay her head back in the mud and stared up at the sky. Her prodigious breasts bobbed on the surface of the mud. Though Lash appeared to be at least Shagdab's age, she must still have had her choice of orc males. "The Red Tusks are at a split in the road," she continued. "War is coming, and there is no way to avoid it."

"Will we win?"

"A battle," Lash said. "Ten battles, perhaps, against the Pikeskulls. But a war? No."

"What can I do?"

Lash turned her head slightly to study Shauba. "I have spoken to human merchants from the Marches, and the quag whores who dwell in Esker and other hillforts. I know that, despite the Treaty of Great Wallamous, there will be no Hillcrest army coming to our aid.

"But you have orcish blood, Shauba. Tell me. If some remnant of the Red Tusks survives this war, will they find a new home amongst the humans of the Marches?"

Shauba hesitated. Long enough that she feared her silence itself was an answer. "The humans of Hillcrest love the thrill and the profit of Smashfest. Men love to boast that they beat an orc at wrestling or ax-throwing." She shut her eyes, as much to feel the soreness of yesterday's bruises slough away as to hide the memory of pain. "But they do not love orcs. They think us brutes. Ugly. Stupid. Savage. The humans who love orcs, are, I think, already here with the Red Tusks."

"I suspected," sighed Lash. "But I had to be sure."

"Mikel knows better than me. He says Grigor Wallams will do whatever will make him Lord of all the Marches. You should speak to Mikel."

Lash arched her brow.

Shauba remembered Mikel's concern about their captive. "The Pikeskull we brought in yesterday. Is he still alive?"

Lash shrugged. "He might be."

"Can we keep him alive?" At the orc's look of confusion, Shauba added, "Mikel is clever. He's conjuring up some plan."

Lash turned her thoughtful gaze towards the sky. "It seems I do need to speak to Mikel."

**

Shauba and Alog sparred, bare feet stepping lightly in the mud, slashing and thrusting with weighted clubs. Alog was a fine practice partner. About her size, he was quicker than Shauba's father, and he enjoyed himself just as much.

"I am impressed," he laughed, swaying back from a swipe of her club. "It seems like you have been fighting all of your life."

"I have been," she replied. She feinted with the club before committing to another strike. "Against bullies, mostly."

"Humans bully orcs? I never would have guessed." Alog parried the blow and shoved her back.

"No one bullied me. They were cruel to me, yes. But always behind my back. It was Mikel they bullied."

"Ah," Alog said, pressing his own attack. "Well, your instincts are quite good. This isn't even your weapon of choice."

"It's similar enough," Shauba grunted. She slid her club inside his, knocked it off center-line. She rammed her shoulder into him and sent him stumbling into the mud. "When I don't think too much, and I rely on instinct, I don't fuck up."

Against the Pikeskull, she had fucked up. She couldn't let that happen again, not against a strong opponent. She clasped Alog's arm and pulled him to his feet. After the shattersack match and the Lok'gorash, the orc scout had warmed to her.

"I will miss sparring with you, Cousin," he said. "Warriors say we will be on the march soon."

"Who will be on the march?"

"The Red Tusk army. As a scout and a member of the Boss-meet, I will surely go." Alog's eyes burned with intensity, like twin fires. "And we will surely crush the Pikeskulls."

Shauba swallowed. Alog was a follower of Lash. He must have known their chances. Yet he would proudly march out from the hillfort's protection and take the offensive. Because that was what orcs did.

She showed him as fierce a face as she could muster. "I wish I could join you."

"Stay here, Shauba. The Pikeskulls are many. Some will slip past us, and you will fell them like those trees you chop down."

Shauba plodded back to her hut alone. So far, it seemed like the only plan for avoiding war was Mikel's half-cooked one. They had to try it. Otherwise, Alog and cousins she had never even met wouldn't survive past winter.

But it wasn't Mikel she found waiting for her outside the entrance to her hut. It was the girl, Danica. She was tossing Rash Girl grass hay and scraps. She sat, legs spread, dress rucked up to her thighs, barefoot like the orcs. Her hair was braided and beaded. She smiled gaily as Shauba approached.

"Where is Mikel?" Shauba asked in Doric.

"Lash sent for him," Danica replied.

Gods, that was fast. Shauba had seen Lash only a few hours before. She took the pail from between Danica's knees and knelt to feed the warpig by hand. The human's curious gaze felt warm on Shauba's back.

"Aren't you Karag's quag whore? Why aren't you with him?"

"He left this morning for Yakka's hillfort," Danica said. "I suspect he isn't going there, though, and he isn't coming back either."

Shauba grunted. Rash Girl grunted back and licked her face. It was hard to believe this roly-poly, always-hungry blob was a trained killer.

"Mikel and I have a good plan, you know," Danica said. "It's the only way I can see to avoid losing all of this."

"You can leave anytime," Shauba said, still not looking at her. "What do you even care?"

"You should know what it's like, Shauba. You also don't fit in where you come from."

"This is where I come from." It wasn't entirely a lie. She turned to the human girl. "This is my home." She didn't know exactly why she felt such hostility towards Danica.

The human chewed on her lip and shrugged. "Esker is more of a home to me than Clearwater March ever was."

"Well, you're not like me. You're not even like Mikel."

"Fair enough. I was an alchemist's apprentice in Clearwater."

"Congratulations. Now you fuck orcs."

Danica glanced down. Maybe that one hurt. "I am respected here. I help treat orcs who are sick and wounded," she said. "I also know how to make an orc sick. Even with their iron guts, I can brew a concoction to make them feel like they have... a plague."

"So? Poison the whole Pikeskull tribe? Is that the plan?"

"No, it isn't," Danica replied, clearly angry now.

"Am I interrupting something?" a voice said in Orcish. Shauba had heard that voice before, and it sent a thrill along her spine.

Bashukk wore a wolf-pelt cloak over his shoulders, wrapped around his chest and hips, covering a leather vest. His black-eyed gaze bored into Shauba as if he were claiming her soul.

Shauba desperately wanted him to have it.

"Shall we walk?" he said to her.

Shauba had already been splattered with mud from sparring. Now her arm was wet with pig slobber and bits of hay. "Uh..." She wiped her arms clean.

"I'll watch over Rash Girl," Danica offered.

Shauba glanced at the young woman. "Um..." She suddenly realized how much her mother might have been like Danica, just nineteen years before. "Sometimes I speak before I think things through."

"It's already forgotten," Danica said, with a dismissing wave.

Shauba hastily got up to join Bashukk, who had already begun walking away. She noted how other orcs they passed dipped their heads or spoke his name in greeting.

"I see greatness in your future, Shauba," he said.

"H-how is that?"

"Your father was great. You have already shown your prowess. You have experiences no other orc has."

"Experiences with humans, you mean."

"You understand them."

Shauba snorted. She was about to deny it. Then she decided she preferred the praise. "It's hard to see anything in my future beyond this war."

"We are always at war, Shauba." They had crossed the village area and reached the cliff wall. Bashukk swung open an iron gate -- a different one than Lash had used. He started up a dark stairwell.

"Our treaty is with Hillcrest." Bashukk's voice was louder in the close tunnel. "So all the other Marches are fair game. We raid them from time to time. We raid Pikeskulls. They raid us. When your father was your age, we sent war parties as far south as the Stews, and into the northern forests."

Shauba climbed the steps after him, up through sulfurous darkness that would have confounded a human.

"War never changes how orcs act towards orcs," Bashukk said. He glanced at her as they emerged into the sunlight again. They were up atop the ridge, where Lash lived, but farther north along the esker.

The widow's peak of Bashukk's hair-like headdress hung over his brow. "Do you understand? We rule as always. We kill each other over petty jealousies as always. We lust as always. We fuck as always."

Shauba bit her lip. "You're not another of my cousins, are you?"

Bashukk chuckled. He gestured towards the edge of the bluff. It was rocky and rough, until it dropped sharply, straight down to the village from which they'd climbed.

"What is it you lust after, Shauba?"

Gods! Isn't it obvious? She was practically leaving puddles behind her.

She walked as close to the cliff's edge as she dared. She could see far to the east, into the little vale where she and Mikel had first come to Esker. She could see the gentle slope up to the ridge, with its pasture and breastworks. The stone wall inside those, containing the village.

"The war with the Pikeskulls will end here," he said, "and at the ramparts of the other Red Tusk hillforts. Pikeskulls will bleed on our army's spears. Then they will come here and bleed on the outer defenses. And then at the wall. When they reach the esker itself, either they will break, or we will. But some Red Tusks will survive.

"So what is it you want, Shauba?" Bashukk repeated.

"I only came to learn where I come from. To be a part of the world that has always been denied me."

"You aim too low," Bashukk said, stepping closer. "Lash took your father's place. She is no warrior. Oruk is long of tusk, well past his prime, and soon to die. You could rule with me, Shauba."

"As your...?" She looked up into his face, etched with delicate scars. They were deliberately, artfully drawn.

"Yes. As mine."

He was very near now. Close enough to swallow her whole, and drifting closer. She closed her eyes and welcomed what came next.

Shauba had never kissed any man before. It was somehow more intimate than all the fucking she had done, this hungry dance of lips, salt taste, tongue thrusting into her virgin mouth. His plate-sized hand seized the back of her head, holding her there to explore. She thought she might melt into him.

She finally pulled away from him and tried to regain her composure. "You must have other women."

"None like you," Bashukk said. "Come. I will show you my home."

Mikel would be smarter about this. As much of a slut as he was, he always kept his wits around him. Mikel would suss out politics, guess at Bashukk's motivations, and still get rammed. He would be in control, even while he was taking it up the ass.

Bashukk thirsted for power. Shauba might be smitten, but a man like him could hardly be. He surely wanted something from her. But Shauba looked into those cruel eyes and knew that he was what she had wanted all along. She was not Mikel.

Bashukk had kissed her.

Her mind spun, like a child's toy, as Bashukk led her down into his circular hut, dark and close and thick with the scent of birchwood, and musk, and him. His hands slid down her sides, heat spilling through the thin blouse she wore. She eased her arms around him, slipping under the furs and leather. He ducked his head to kiss her throat, his tusks grazing her thin skin.

Their clothing seemed to surrender on its own. Her fingers discovered that he wore nothing beneath the loose strip of fur that wrapped between his legs. Briefly, she stroked his thickness. He shoved her pants down to her ankles, and she deftly stepped out of them.

Then his hands were between her thighs and lifting. Bashukk hoisted her up like she weighed nothing, until she sat atop his shoulders under the high ceiling. She wrapped her legs around his great head, thrust her fingers into his 'hair' and rode him. He devoured her.

Another first. Another mind-blowing initiation. His tongue delved into her drooling pussy and his hands gripped her ass like a vise. The pleasurable tickle of his tongue was more delicate than fucking, but just as much a delight. Somehow Bashukk carried her like this, while she swore and sputtered and moaned, and dumped her into a soft pile of fur.

The hut was already dark, and Shauba closed her eyes so she could do nothing but feel. What she felt nearly overwhelmed her. The soft caress of pelts beneath her. Bashukk's hand pressing her leg back, above her head. His other hand spreading her sensitive flesh wide. His tongue lapping at her gaping slit like a cat after milk.

Shauba clutched his head. The headdress slipped off, and she stroked his bald scalp beneath. She thrust her hips up against his face, as if she could draw him even deeper inside her. Long swipes of his tongue laved her, swirling around her budding clit. The pleasure made Shauba's movements increasingly erratic, as if she were trying to paint her wetness along the etched lines of his cheeks.

Bashukk drove Shauba to the crest of her orgasm. She balanced at the summit for a heartbeat before tumbling over the edge.

Breathless, she pulled Bashukk up, until she could taste herself on his lips.

"What is it you want, Shauba?"

If Bashukk expected some calculating response, some long-term strategy plan, he had chosen precisely the wrong woman. Just now, she wanted his cock bottoming out in her pussy.

"Fuck me!" she begged.

Bashukk's lips closed over hers as he guided the head of his cock to her waiting hole. His tongue plunged into her mouth. But his cock only breached the entrance to her cunt. He pushed in slightly, then withdrew, then more.

Impatient, she thrust her hips back at him. But, like an out of step dancer, she could never get more than part of him inside her, advancing as he withdrew. He was torturing her by bits, and she moaned in protest.

Then he found her rhythm, thrusting as she did, ramming his cock home inside her. Shauba moaned again, this time in relief.

Bashukk could have been an adversary. He may have been as cruel as the sneer on his face. But he wanted Shauba. She could feel it in the way he moved with her, in the way his tongue conquered and explored her mouth and throat and the points of her ears.

He wanted her. Like no one ever had before.

He wrapped a hand around her throat and fucked her down into the furs. Shauba came on Bashukk's plunging cock, sobbing as her body trembled under him. Then she put her arms around his neck, feet around his waist, and held on as he fucked her into a state of simmering ardor.

When Bashukk had had his fill, he crawled up her body until he was nearly sitting atop her chest. Shauba took his cock earnestly into her mouth. He watched as she sucked her own juices off him. She marveled at the thin skin of his cock, tender and stretchy between her lips, even stiff as it was.

He hadn't come yet, but he was eager to plunder another one of her holes. He squatted over her face so that he could plunge down to the back of her mouth. The head of his cock made soft wet sounds as it socketed at the entrance to her throat. Drool spilled over her lips, down her neck, into her ears. He looked down at her, black eyes glinting with satisfaction, and even that gave her a thrill.

Finally, he stepped away. Shauba rolled over and lifted herself on all fours. It wasn't her favorite position, but she had fucked so many times this way it seemed natural. She wagged her ass at him, and Bashukk took the bait.

His hands held her hips and he slid into her easily. Her pussy was hungry, and his cock slick with her saliva. Bashukk's thrusts were deep and steady at first, and then he grabbed a fistul of her hair and dragged her head back.

Shauba nearly came on the spot. Her back arched just like a bow, her ass raised like a target for him. She was his, and she loved it. His strokes came faster, and her juices trickled down the backs of her thighs.

Shauba wailed as she came again. He released her head, and she lowered it to the furs. Hands planted beside her face, she sobbed as he fucked her hard, pounding away. He roared with his orgasm, spilling his seed inside her. Shauba shuddered with each involuntary jerk of his hips.

Shauba lay there, dazed, contented. She could have fallen asleep in that position. Bashukk withdrew from her with a sucking sound. She felt his seed running down her thighs.

He grabbed her hair again and drew her into a kiss. She felt his cock, hard against her thigh, even though it still drooled with his spend.