Bors

A Warmaster Jack Novella

By Onyx Tao

Section Six

This text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike License © 2011 by Onyx Tao

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Author's Note: I made an error in this chapter; I attempted to add a scene that did not belong in this story. I placed some glue for it in the final paragraph of this Section. Having discovered that it does not belong in this story (it's not about Bors, it does not advance the story, nor deepen the reader's understanding of the protagonist -- Bors). To continue the story as it should be, I had to make a minor alteration to this Section (the last paragraph is altered).

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Jack left me behind on the raid, after -- surprising to me -- dithering about whether to take me or not. It was Darz who made up his mind, by saying if Jack wasn't sure he should take me -- he should leave me.

"When you're right, you're right," Jack said. He held up a rough wooden tube. "I've got everything here. Everyone's in place."

"You don't want me to ..."

Jack shook his head. "No. I ... I don't know why we haven't been attacked."

"Maybe because it would be like pushing your hand into a sausage grinder?"

"And when has that ever stopped orcs?"

Darz paused, and then gave a short laugh with nothing like humor in it. "Or gnolls?"

"Hobgoblins," Jack offered.

"Sissies," said Darz dismissively, and for some reason that made both of them laugh. I'm not sure why; Paw described hobgoblins as some of the toughest targets; it was important to have enough warriors when fighting them, important enough to ally with just about anything. But Jack and Darz found a lot things funny that just passed me -- and everybody else around them -- by. Watching everyone get ready to go was frustrating. Even the Bears and Panthers who were stuck at the camp weren't stuck in the camp; Bears manned the forward approaches, and the Panthers were already out scouting.

The only boars left in the camp was Darz's final reserve of twenty-eight warriors, and even they were on alert. Plus, they got cycled out to the forward positions -- I didn't know what or where those were, but the only real way into the Spit camp was through a ravine, so I guessed there were fortifications out there. Not that they'd be likely to tell me. It's not like I was a Spit Sharpener. It did mean there wasn't much to do.

After I'd fucked Timdon until I was bored of her, there was even less. I suppose I could have asked Baxs for a sow, but ... no, no buts, I refused to ask a sow for anything. And if I wanted to go into the sowery ... well, some boars would defy Jack and just barge in. Was I that scared of Jack? Not scared. Just ... certain that defying him was pretty much ... what had Darz said? Pushing your hand into a sausage grinder? Yeah. Pretty much that.

I just sat around the firepit in the yard outside the cliff. The Bear forces ignored me, and I ignored them. Darz didn't ignore me, but she didn't have anything to say to me, either, reserving her few words for the Bear warlord -- Mnorm -- the Bear had left in charge. Warlord Mnorm was even less talkative than Darz, just nodding in acknowledgment. There were twenty-plus Panthers supposedly under Warlord Cathas, but Cathas was out with his scouts; there were only five Panthers in the camp, and all of them reported to Mnorm.

The encampment wasn't deserted, all the sows and and orclets were still here, but I understood why Jack had thought this would be such a good time to raid. There weren't a lot of boars here. Vulnerable, Jack had called it. If there was just some way to get a message to Paw. Or anyone. If I wanted to. Did I? If I had the choice? I didn't think I could, and I don't think I didwant to, but if I could ...

Maybe that's what Darz had really meant aboutpower. It wasn't about a warrior horde, it was about a warrior horde in the right place. At the right moment. Things ... things were things, but sometimes a little push could crash walls, start avalanches. Maybe power was really all about the little moments. All about seeing them, and knowing when to push. I mean, I was a good warrior, but I knew I wasn't as good as Jack or any of his warlords. Still, here I was, right next to Darz and Jack.

Maybe I just needed to push. Where? How? Who? I spent the next couple of days thinking about that, and avoiding Darz. I finally decided I couldn't know where, how, or even who until the moment came. Maybe there'd been a moment earlier, a week or so, when if I could just figured out how to get a message back to Paw ...

Maybe if I'd taken Darz up on her offer. It wasn't about how good I was with an axe, because the Bear was better. It didn't matter how fast I could run -- most of the Panthers were faster than I was. I hoped it wasn't how smart I was, because Jack was a whole lot of smart more than Darz, and even Darz seemed like a whole lot more smart than me. What mattered, while I was here, was how many ways I had to push. And how many people. Push. Couldn't know when, couldn't know how, couldn't know who, until ... I hoped I'd be able to know before the moment came. I'd have some time to get ready. And I needed ...

I thought about it. I needed to get closer to the Warlords, if I could. And Darz. I was already close enough -- too close! -- to Jack. Darz would be easiest to start with, I decided. Probably not the safest, but the easiest, so I decided I'd stop avoiding her. I was sure I'd run into her soon enough.

Unless, of course, she'd been avoiding me, and after a night or two, I wondered. And then, from a short conversation -- all conversations with Mnorm were short -- I realized she was busy. She was, somehow, in contact with Jack (and I wanted the secret of that!) as well as keeping tabs on the Shredded Flag forces (apparently they were not doing what Jack had anticipated) and keeping track of the Panther scouts out around our camp. So if I was going to talk to her ...

I walked up to the doors to her shrine, and just walked through, and down the stairs. I didn't think about it, didn't hesitate, just ... did it. The doors to the shrine at the bottom were open, and Darz was in the middle of something magical, I guess, because the room was filled with a thin mist, black to my night vision but I could see Darz obcured through it. She was staring into a thin but wide stone basin -- the source, I realized, of the thin black mist. It was set on the altar, although the room ... the face of the Mother of Mosters that had been directly behind the altar was gone, replaced by what looked like a shimmering waterfall of ... black ice? Glass? It made no sound, not the wet noises of water, not the whisper of wind, and not the chinks and tiny impacts from ice or glass, just an eerie quiet of falling sharp chunks ...

"Your timing is good," Darz said, not looking up the basin. "I'm almost done. Give me a moment," and she fell quiet.

I stood and waited, and looked around at the rest of the shrine. It looked ... larger than I remembered it, although it had the same smell of cool water and wet stone. The small niches were ... large arches, now, and the grotesquely pregnant idols were bigger statues, even more grossly swollen, although I couldn't make out the race or even the species of them. Some, I thought, were humanoid but others ... others I weren't so sure about. Were those hands? Claws? Pincers? How come what had been little carved niches in the wall were now huge gaping arches leading away into tunnels filled with dark, a black that even orcish vision could not see through.

The stone benches were missing, too, and instead of the rough stone floor it was tiled in black marble laced with a dull ominous pink -- not a common color for night vision, which typically showed everything in shades of gray ... I glanced around, looking for a candle or anything that might explain the color on the floor, but there was nothing. And the walls, although they were the same color, they were smooth now, not rough, looking polished to an almost reflective surface. They curved into the floor and ceiling, a smooth transition over a foot or so.

"It seems Jack has ..." and then Darz's voice cut off. "I was expecting Warlord Mnorm," she continued. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been thinking about your ... what you said to me, the other night," I said. "And ... I ..." I paused, but Darz just stood there, waiting. "I'd like to take you up on it," I said, forcing the words out. "If ... if I still can."

"I think you can," Darz said, "although your timing is shit. I don't really have ..." she paused. "I have some time. What languages can you speak?"

"Orc," I said.

"Just ..."

"Yes."

"You can'treadit, can you?"

"No," I said.

"So you can't write it, either," Darz said with a sigh.

"No," I said. "Is that ..."

"Required? Not really, although it would make ..." she paused, and started again. "There are many ways to occult power, and thebestof them does, but ... there are paths just as effective and much faster. Mine requires reading and writing, Urdris ... Urdris has the power of storms running through him, convenient for him."

"I don't ..." I started.

"You'd be surprised," Darz said, "just what can be found lurking in one's bloodlines. Oh my yes ..." she paused. "I'll need to cut you," and she produced a tiny knife, not even a dagger, and made an incision along my arm. Bright green blood welled out along the line of the cut. "It would be simplest," she said, using the blade to gather a small pool of blood.

"What ... what are you going ..."

"To test it," she said. "If there is anything latent in your lineage, something should show up ..." she dripped the thick green blood onto the altar, and muttered something under her breath. A spell? I watched the pool of blood, but it wasn't doing anything interesting at all. "Hmmm," she said softly, and then she muttered something else, touched the knife to the blood, and a flicker of silver ran through it and the altar. "Ah," she said. "Nothing, but perhaps ..."

I watched, but nothing happened.

"Or perhaps not," she said, sounding disappointed. "Pity."

"What?" I asked.

"It means that you are not ..." she paused. "This is not an insult or commentary on you, it is merely a fact. But you are not ..." and she paused again. "I'm not sure how to say it orcish. Your blood is not aligned to magic; there is no magic within it, and it is too ... dull, I suppose, to soak up magic if I tried to infuse it into you."

"Oh," I said. No magic. That came almost as a relief, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "So much for that, then."

"Mmm?" said Darz. "No, no, it's just ... you'll never be a sorcerer. That would have been easiest, but there are other ways to power, Bors, many others ..." she tapped the knife against the altar -- the now-gleamingly clean altar, without a trace of the blood that had been there moments ago. Bors took a innocuous breath, but all he smelled was the cool earth and wet; the sharper blood-scent had vanished. Darz either didn't notice or -- more likely, wasn't surprised. "There are ways, there are ways, never fear ... but I don't see you devoting yourself to the Mother of Monsters."

"No," I said. "Not really. Not that I don't honor Her, of course, but ... no."

Darz shrugged. "Her service is not for everyone," she said. "But no, not for you." She paused. "Or ... no, that won't work either." She shook her head. "Ask me for anything except time," she sighed. "This will have to wait. I am sorry, but ... I need some time to think about how best to do this, anyway." She gestured toward the stairs. "Come back in a day or two. The fighting should be over by then, and ..." she paused, and stared closer to the dish.

"DAMNATION!" she snarled, and muttered something. "Bearlord Mnorm. Please come to my shrine now." A sudden breeze whispered past me, and Darz turned to face me. "Go. Go!" I shrugged, and left, passing Mnorm as I walked through the courtyard. He was headed to the shrine. I suppose magic might be useful, but it seemed to me that just shouting or sending a runner would have done just as well.

Two nights later I found out just how wrong I was. A Bear (all the warriors left in camp were Bear) spilled his beer on Darz as she staring up into the night sky. It's a common, deliberate insult -- all the more common because the offender can claim it was 'an accident'. It still generally leads to a fight, though. In Darz's case, I don't think she realized it was a challenge to her authority, because she just cleaned herself with magic -- a wave of her hand and the wet blotch vanished from her robe as she snapped "be more careful, fool."

His exaggerated "Sorry," followed by a sneering laugh was anything but apologetic, and Darz turned to face him as he swung a sword at her. She ducked the blow and suddenly she had her own iron mace in hand, and although he moved the sword to block her, it didn't block the mace, the mace just snapped the sword back and it slammed into him with a thunk. Darz spat on him, and screamed something furious in some language I didn't know -- I don't think any of the other orcs knew it either, but they all stepped back. I'm not sure if the Bear had expected that, but he carried on anyway. Not there was much else he could do; and it was clear he was using his anger. It didn't matter. Darz just moved out of his way; he never had a chance. Darz wasn't as good as Jack, not by a long shot, but she was certainly up to smashing her way through this poor Bear warrior, and she proceeded to do that.

And then, after she had finished, and kicked the bleeding orc, she just looked around, the bloody mace still in her hand. "Anyone else?"

"No," one of the warriors said. "Shaman."

"That's right," hissed Darz angrily. "Let me show you what happens to my enemies." She reached down, and ripped the sword from his hands, and then she pointed at two of the warriors. "You. And you. Bring that. The rest of you, follow me." I was pretty sure I wasn't part of the group she meant, but I figured I'd come along. The two she'd pointed at were cowed enough to obey, and the rest followed, some out of fear, but more, I think, out of curiosity.

She went back to the shrine, of course, and once we'd gotten down the steps, the shrine had altered yet again. There was a general uneasy muttering, although nobody actually said anything loudly enough for Darz to hear -- or, more likely, bother to notice.

"There, on the altar," she directed, and the two guards did as she directed. "Stop!" she ordered as they tried to move off. "Here." She went to a niche, and pulled out a weird collection of heavy human armor -- breastplate, greaves, metal armoring for legs, at least three sets of heavy metal boots. Some of it was dented, but it was all in good condition -- nothing rusty. I wondered where it had come from; humans, of course, but ... maybe the captured ones? I knew it wasn't relevant, but I wondered if any of it had been Tidmon's.

"Put that on him," she said. "Whatever fits."

"But ..." one started, and Darz looked at him, a quelling glare that quieted him, and the two of them struggled, putting on various mismatched pieces of armor. The gauntlets didn't match, although the boots did. A shiny white greave went on his left leg, a darker, heavier one got fastened to his right. The two warriors worked quickly, wanting to finish and leave. Whatever Darz had planned, they didn't want any part of it. The warrior was still alive, I saw, as they strapped the metal around him. He said something, blood bubbling from his mouth, but Darz ignored it, just waiting for them to finish.

"No," she said, stopping one of them as he reached for a helm. "I'll put the helm on him myself." They nodded, and moved back quickly -- very quickly, pushing their way to the back of the shrine with the other watching Bears.

Darz used a claw to slice open the warrior's forehead, and shoved a black rock into the cut. There was another groan, and then the gnoll priestess-shaman forced a huge helmet over his head, tieing it down onto the breastplate with leather cords. It wasn't the matching helmet to the breastplate, it lacked the straps that would have buckled onto the breastplate, and Darz just knotted the makeshift connector into place, lowered the face protector, and stepped back. She looked around the shrine; it was silent. We were expecting a sacrifice, I think, at least, I was -- we were used to that, and that probably would have impressed us enough.

It wasn't what happened. Darz slammed a hand down onto the breastplate, leaving a bloody stain on it -- I'm not sure where the blood came from. She hadn't been hit in the fight earlier, and I hadn't seen her cut herself but there was a bloody handprint there nevertheless, and she said something in words that hurt my head to hear, and filled me with a deep curdling hunger.

The armor darkened; that was the only word for it; the various pieces tarnished -- not rusted -- but stained, as a deep howl of agony came from the closed helm -- a loud gurgling yell that just ... ended. It didn't trail off, or get weaker, it just stopped, right in the middle.

"Rise," Darz commanded, handing it the sword she'd taken. "Guard the altar. Let none but me past."

That's exactly what happened. The armor got up. There wasn't a body in it, not anymore, just two sparks of dull green light in the helm, that looked around at us, and then it raised the sword into a guard position.

And waited. Where, I realized, it would wait forever, until Darz commanded otherwise. I swallowed. That ... that was power. Darz had just shown -- again, since she'd supposedly conjured something to carve out this very shrine years ago -- just what kind of power she had. It wasn't a power I wanted to fight, and most of the other orcs were backing away from her and the altar and the thing damned to eternal servitude behind it.

"Go," she said, quietly. "And make yourselves obedient to your Bearlord, and your Warmaster," she said. "Or I will make you obedient to me." They went. It was practically a stampede up the steep steps, out into the night air, and the Bear warriors quickly dispersed. Nobody wanted to talk about it, that night, or afterward. It was like some great, terrible secret that we carried around. We knew what had happened, but we didn't say anything. The only acknowledgment was a wide, wide circle around Darz when she emerged. Nobody wanted to get too near her. Even Mnorm seemed a little wary, although he didn't seem to treat her that much differently. Not that he could, as a warlord -- Bearlord -- and still retain any kind of authority over his troops.

That pretty much killed any festivity while we waited for the rest of the Spits to return. Nobody -- not me, not the Bears, maybe not even Darz -- expected the Warmaster to come back in anything other than triumph, and he didn't. Eight days later, Darz informed Mnorm that Jack's campaign was over, the Shredded Flag clan was gone, and the Warmaster would be back in three days with most of his warriors, and captives. Jack had ordered a victory celebration, and hopefully that would be sufficient to shake off the funk from Darz's earlier demonstration.

Paw had victory celebrations; I thought I knew what was going to happen. I wasn't prepared for a celebration, Spit-style. Jack brought back sows from the Shredded Flag -- nearly fifty of them -- and had them locked into breeding stands, and there were twenty or so Flag boars. The party opened when Jack personally spitted the first one, and rolled the boar, still cursing him, over the huge firepit to roast. The heat finished him after a half-hour, and the Warmaster ordered the beer opened. There was a steady stream of boars, coming up to the dias where Jack was standing -- right where the beer was, of course, so he probably gathered in almost all the Spit boars.

And then he talked. It was ... it was ... I wasn't sure what he was saying, but it made me pick up my sword just like the Boar and Wolf and Panther and even Foxes around me, and the cheers went on and on and on until it sounded like the mountain itself was calling for him:Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack ... I finally felt I understood the devotion the Spit Sharpeners had for the Warmaster. Of course, with victories like this one, anyonewould be cheered but ... not like him. Not the way the Spits cheered for Jack.

Of course, if Jack had decided to roll the Bleeding Slash the way he had the Flags, it might just as easily be me or Kett being spitted and put over the fire. That was a strange thought, at odds with the giddy drinking and dancing and fucking of the victory party, and I found myself covering a sow with a beer in one hand, alternating thrusting into her with a gulp of beer. I couldn't help looking over at the roasting boars, one of them still kicking feebly trying to get off the spit, and thinking that could be Kett. It took the shine off the party, and I made my way to the outskirts and then back to Jack's rooms.

Heam was back, straightening up the bedroom -- it had maybe gotten a little, or more than a little, disarranged during the past couple weeks. He nodded, and when I went for the pot, made it clear that relieving me of the beer I'd been drinking was his job. Timdon was chained by her collar to the post. I'd kept her naked while Jack was gone. She'd been pregnant enough for Jack to notice before he left, and by this point, I could see the beginning of a bulge. I looked down at her, and decided to go back out.

Dawn approached, and the party was winding down. There were only three boars left unspitted, and there was nearly a full -- roasted -- boar just off the firepit. Most of the Spits looked full, and many of the younger warriors were sleeping, having eaten, drunk, and fucked themselves out. Jack was conversing -- with the Bear, the Fox King, and the First Panther. That wasn't a group I wanted to interrupt, so I veered off, and ended up by the firepit, where I turned down an offer of meat. Paw would butcher humans, sometimes, but the Slash generally drew the line at fellow orcs. The Spits didn't; they'd eaten orcs before Jack came along, and I'm sure they'd be eating orcs after.

I wandered over to the Warmaster after the Bear and the First Panther had left; I wasn't sure Jack was finished, but he waved a gauntleted hand for me to come over to join him and Urdris. "Enjoying our party?"

"Uh, I guess," I said. "I mean, yes. Congratulations on your victory, by the way."

Jack shook his head. "The Flags put up a better fight than I expected, and too many got away."

"That's ..."

"No, it's not your fault," Jack said, cutting Urdris off. "Not you, and not your Foxes. Sometimes plans just don't work the way we expect."

"But ..."

"When I blame you, I'll be sure to let you know," Jack said. "It didn't work. Next time, we'll try something else."

Urdris just nodded, dolefully, and I decided I'd move on, but Jack shook his head as I started to move off.

"I'm leaving you to watch the rest of this ..." Jack paused, and looked around. "Party, I suppose. Not much left to do, other than make sure the sows get to the right lodges."

"You want me to look after sows?"

Jack's voice dropped. "Urdris, if the sows don't go to the lodges we agreed on, it means trouble that I don't need. I want you to prevent any last minute sow-napping. It's not about the sows, it's about the agreement."

"Yeah," said Urdris.

"Don't fuck this up, Urdris," Jack warned. "Orc boars don't deal with sows well. You and me, we don't have that problem. But it doesn't mean we can ignore it. The other warlords will accept your take on it -- if I let the Bear do it, there'd be fighting between Bear and Panther."

"You figure?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe not, but it sure as fuck wouldn't surprise me, and we don't need it. Take care of it for me."

"I will," Urdris said, looking over the courtyard. "Warmaster."

"That wouldn't really happen," I said to Jack on the way back to his cave. "Fighting over sows?"

"Orcs don't need an excuse to fight," Jack said.

I couldn't argue with that. "Good party," I said.

Jack grunted.

"I'm sorry I missed the fight."

"It was boring," Jack said. "Slash, hack, stab; stab, hack, slash. Repeat." The half-orc muttered something I couldn't hear, and then we were back at the cave. He didn't say anything, just pulled his clothes off, everything but that gauntlet, and got onto the bed. Heam looked questioningly at him, but Jack ignored him. "You fucked Timdon already?"

"Uh," I said, not quite sure why he'd ask, "yeah."

"Good," he said. "Just chain the bitch up then. I want to sleep."

Jack wasn't communicative the next night, either. His warriors kept coming, though, and so there was a second victory celebration, and a third, and then a fourth. Jack spent the time mostly with the Bear, Darz, and Urdris, and on the fifth night, announced that one of the Bear's warlords, Hithelk, would be taking half of the Bear's troops, and would be the Tenth Warmaster, taking over the Shredded Flag's old camps. Panther Warlord Ur and his twenty Panthers would go along too, with Foxmasters Hammer and Blue, and three Foxes.

No Wolves, I noticed, but nobody said anything about that, then, or in the next couple of weeks as they prepared to move out. A few questions in the right places turned up some interesting answers. Apparently Jack had been setting up smaller orc-camps whenever he took out a rival clan. Their leader was a Warmaster, second only to Jack himself. The most promising warriors got sent here, for training, to be warlords.

Interesting.

Jack trained them to be warlords, and the Bear trained them to fight. I found that last part out when Jack peremptorily tossed me to the Bear to fight, and I got my ass kicked, over and over and over. I'd thought I was decent, and when the Bear told me that first night "You're not too bad," I thought I was pretty close to done already. No. The Bear showed me that I can always get better, and it takes a hell of a lot of work just to stay good. It was good practice, though.

I talked to Darz again, a few weeks later. It was a short and unsatisfying talk. "Yes, I've found a way for you," she said, "but it must wait until the stars are right." Darz gestured up at the sky. "There. That one. There's probably some orc-name for it, but to me, it is Hassaleh, and when it sets with the rising of the sun -- the stars will be right." She paused. "There are other preparations, too."

"When will that be? What ... preparations?"

"It will be when it will be," Darz said severely. "Watch the star. As to the preparation -- that is my concern, not yours. Besides, it might not happen," she said with a smile. "Your father might misbehave, or Jack might decide you're not worth the bother, and you'll end up there," and she nodded at the firepit. "He's a little erratic sometimes."

Yeah. More than a little. This entire past week he'd just been having me fuck Timdon. She -- and she was actually looking more and more like a she -- wasn't much fun at this point, with evening sickness and for some weird reason Jack was taking her out during the day, never for very long. I didn't know why; it didn't seem like she'd been fucked when they got back, not that anybody would want to fuck in daylight. I didn't want to ask, partly because I just didn't want to ask and partly because the Warmaster was so clearly unhappy. Maybe he had a sore tooth or something.

So I did the boring weapons-training (even though Jack never let me go out raids. Being a hostage sucked, and the more I watched Jack manage his warlords -- and he did manage them -- the more I realized just how much being absent from the Slash tribe was hurting my ability to replace Paw as Chieftain. Was I learning enough from Jack and the Bear to make up for not being there? It depended, I supposed, on who else might take that role. Kett might. I couldn't think if any of the others were close to Yellem; Paw didn't really like anyone at all. If Yellem survived. The old faker might have keeled over dead. I hoped he had. There really wasn't any way to know, short of going back, and Jack wasn't going to let me go anytime soon.

I asked him if he was going to keep me forever, and he said, no, but he added he wasn't going to send me back any time soon. And he wasn't going to let me join a lodge, either -- although he did say his first inclination would be Wolf, if he were going to, which he wasn't. He wouldn't tell me why Wolf, either, although he did tell me that once anyone joined Wolf -- they would never leave. Whatever that meant.

Weapons-training, planning for raids that I couldn't go on (frustrating!), and watching Timdon swell up; that was my boring, hostage life. Every couple of weeks I'd look up at the sky, and note the position of Hasseleh as sunrise approached. It's not that I wanted magic, or power, or anything else -- I just wanted out of this. I wanted to be back with my clan. I wanted to be feared; I wanted to be a warrior. No, I was a warrior. Maybe not as good as the Bear, or Jack, but certainly as good as their warlords. The enforced nothing was making me crazy.

Picking a fight with a Wolf packlord who called me a lazy coward might not have been a good idea, but it was fun. I cut him up pretty good, and then I sliced up the three so-called warriors with him. I knew Jack would find out about it, but that asshole had been sneering on me, and Jack never said anything about. The three warriors survived, so I figured Jack wasn't too mad. Of course, I got beaten to a pulp by one of other Wolf packlords, and Jack didn't say anything aboutthat, either, when I dragged myself in.

I wasn't even sure if Jack was paying me that much attention. As Timdon got heavier and heavier, Jack spent more and more time with her. He talked to her, in human, and it was more than a little creepy. He'd be holding her, talking to her in what sounded like a perfectly normal tone, not angry, almost happy, stroking her swollen belly, and the moment he let her, she'd be over almost cowering behind me. Whatever he said clearly scared her. I asked, the first couple of times, what he'd said, and Jack had just said, "I'm telling her how much I ... appreciate her."

Yeah. Appreciate. I'm not sure what he meant, but I don't think she appreciated his appreciation.

It took her about two moons before she stopped fighting when I fucked her, and started enjoying it. Jack didn't say anything, but I think that disappointed him. He had taken some strange interest in it, telling me to do this, or do that, and then talking to Timdon in that weird human language. It was about then he stopped ordering me to fuck her every morning. Or maybe it was that she was actively asking for it, and he didn't have to. It was hard to know exactly what Jack was thinking. It was a month after that when he gave me a set of three carved cocks -- all identical, all the same size, and looking exactly like my cock -- one made of glass, one made of silver (real silver!), and one carved from stone. I don't know how he got them looking like mine, and that's something I never quite dared to ask him. I didn't want to know. But all he said was that Timdon seemed so fond of the real one, maybe these would make her happy, too, and I think he said that to Timdon, but at this point she didn't say much. There really wasn't much to say to that beyond thanks, and hoping he never discussed it again. I put the box under my bed, and forgot -- well, I tried to forget about it, anyway.

Hasseleh was still high when dawn came, but it was, I thought, lower.

By the time Timdon passed six moons, she was as swollen and huge, and she was barely able to move. He and Baxs argued -- well, Baxs asked that she be moved into the sowery, and Jack said no, but that for Baxs and Jack, that was an argument. Idon't think he'd ever told Baxs no either.