by Simon Archer
Adra was a closed book. She stood beside me in a relaxed pose, her hands clasped before her and her face impassive. Her clothes consisted of hides and furs bound together with leather thongs and draped about her muscular form. About her neck was a woven necklace of finely cut leather thongs that held her tusks as a reminder of her sacrifice. They both had been intricately scrimshawed with tribal patterns that likely held some meaning for her.
Once again, I wondered what the spirits would eventually demand of me. I knew that I barely scratched the surface of the abilities of a full-blown shaman, despite how powerful I seemed to be. There would always be more to learn.
“When?” I asked.
“As soon as you can,” the shamaness replied. “It is important.”
I nodded and glanced back at Mary. My witch’s eyes were closed, and she swayed gently to and fro while she sang.
“Watch officer!” I called out over the deck.
A few moments later, a dwarf, one of Bord’s crew, joined me at the helm. This fellow, named Galban, was one of the only dwarves to take a standard deck watch. The rest of the grumpy bastards preferred to stay below in their workshops with Bord, who was the other one who served a watch.
“What d’ye need, Cap’n?” he asked in a deep baritone.
“I need one o’ the helmsmen,” I replied. “Someone willin’ to trade watches with me.”
“I’ll have a talk with ‘em,” the dwarf replied with an orcish salute before he stomped off down to the main deck and began yelling at sailors.
I chuckled to myself. This would be a lot easier if Jimmy hadn’t slipped off to play hide the pickle in the crow’s nest with Jenny Nettles. So far, their relationship hadn’t affected the function of the ship, and they did, somehow, manage to keep an alert watch. That was the impressive part.
Galban didn’t keep me waiting long. He walked up with a lanky, shaven-headed female orc. Gol the Clanless, usually another one of The Hullbreaker’s lookouts, had apprenticed to Jimmy in learning the helm as well.
“Gol,” I nodded to her. “Ye willin’ to take my watch?”
“Aye, Cap’n,” she replied. “If ye be willin’ to take my turn in the galley.”
I snorted laughter and nodded. “I’ll see it done. There be somethin’ I need to attend to, though.”
She nodded and grinned, then took the ship’s wheel as I moved aside. Adra shot me a nod and walked off down the stairs, then slipped through the door to the cabins. Without saying anything more, I followed.
Adra led me to the door of my quarters and waited patiently for me to open it for her. I raised an eyebrow at that as I did so, and she padded in ahead of me.
“I reckon this is a fairly official visit,” I told her as I took a seat behind my desk.
“Of a sort,” she said and took the chair opposite me.
We sat in silence for a long moment until she finally broke it with a soft huff. “I need access to the Black Mirror and the scrimshawed skull,” she said finally. “And we need to speak of your Path.”
I heard the capital letter as she said that and wondered what might be wrong. Surely there was no issue with the way the spirits of all sorts loved to answer my call.
“Alright,” I said, then rested my hands on my desk with the fingers twined together. “You are my teacher, and I am happy to speak of my Path with you. However, as Captain of this ship, I have problems with giving anyone access to those items.”
“They could be of use,” she asserted, peering past me into the growing darkness beyond my window. “I need to determine if they will help or harm your cause.”
“My cause,” I said flatly. “Is it not yours as well?”
“Insofar as we are bound together, Splitter of Skull.” Her gaze met mine and held it. “I must seek all possible advantages to assist you, or so say the ancestors.”
“I don’t like it.” My eyes stayed locked with hers, and I didn’t move a muscle except to speak. “If it is to be done, then we do it together.”
I expected resistance, but Adra simply nodded. “So be it.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“For that question, yes. I will teach you what you need to join me.” Her eyes drifted from mine, not as if she’d lost the implicit challenge, but as if she was content with the result.
I blinked, unsure in that moment of whether I’d won, then asked, “What of my Path?”
“You advance quickly, as I expected, but there is…” She paused and took a deep breath. “A complication.”
The word she used had many meanings in Orgik. It could simply mean something unexpected, or it could mean a path to imminent loss or failure. The context told me nothing, but her expression hinted at the darker definition.
I scowled and leaned back in my chair. “What complication? The elementals come at my call and do as I bid, the dead hearken to my words and whisper their secrets to me. They have made no demands, nor have they challenged me.”
“And that,” she replied, “is the complication of which I speak. Never have I seen anyone with such influence over the unseen. Never. Until you.”
“Why do you think that it is bad?” I demanded.
“Because they do not come for you.” She reached up and rubbed the bridge of her nose, then at the spots on her jaw where her tusks had been pulled. “They come for the sacrifice you offer unbidden.”
“What?” I didn’t understand. I’d offered nothing to the elementals or the dead, and yet they did things for me as if I had. Suddenly, I questioned why.
Adra pointed one of her index fingers at me. “Your sacrifices, Splitter of Skulls. That is why they take to you like a shark to chum.”
“They like me because I kill?” I asked. “Then why do they not swarm to any orc warrior?”
“They do,” she said with a slow nod. “It is rare that a warrior becomes a shaman while he still is active upon whatever battlefield calls to him. You are a shaman at war, and the spirits feel that, and they feast upon the energy of conflict.”
“Even the elementals?”
Adra nodded. “Indeed. The elementals find it exciting, and they feast upon the energy released. It is not specifically death that they are drawn to, but the swirling chaos of conflict, and you are the center of a typhoon, Splitter of Skulls.”
“I see no problems, so long as they keep coming,” I observed.
“That is where you are wrong,” she said firmly. “Without a personal sacrifice, they will never truly obey you. They will do what you want, so long as it pleases them and so long as you feed them, but you must give the spirits something of you to earn their trust.”
“And if I have their trust, they will obey me?” I wondered.
Adra nodded and studied me thoughtfully. “What would you give, oh Captain?”
Many things flashed through my head: an eye, a hand, my tusks, blood. That wasn’t enough, though, and I knew it. I needed more. I needed something that had no limit, that the spirits and elementals would see as what it truly was. At that moment, it came to me, along with the faces of Mary Night, Ligeia, Tabitha Binx, and Adra. My other friends danced through my vision, along with The Hullbreaker and the whole of the Archipelago.
I had come to realize that there was one thing inside me that had no limit, aside from rage and force of will. As I shared it, it grew even stronger, and it gave me strength beyond even the battle-rage that I wielded.
“Love,” I said. “That is the only thing I have that has no limit, and I’ll wager that nothing out there in the unseen world has ever been offered it.”
She sat back in her chair suddenly and blinked in disbelief. “Of course,” the shamaness whispered. “You would give an answer that no other orc would give or even could give.” Adra looked down at her hands, then raised her head and smiled at me, her eyes bright. “So, Splitter of Skulls, if you would offer love to the spirits, would you grant it to this shaman as well?”
12
“You spoke with Mary, did you not?” I asked i
n Orgik.
“Of course,” Adra replied. She straightened in the chair and arched her back a little, giving me a smug look. “She is chief among your wives, is she not?”
“Well, Tabitha might contest that,” I said with a laugh, “but, aye, Mary is the first among equals, I reckon.”
“First among equals,” Adra mulled over the words, then nodded. “That is an interesting description of your harem of mates, I think.”
“It is.”
I scratched my beard and studied the shamaness. Her age was hard to tell, but then orcs tended to remain hale and strong until our forties when the constant stress and beatings that our bodies took began to drag us down. If I had to guess, I suspected Adra was in her thirties, much like I was. She was muscular and bulky if compared to a human woman but delicate and light-framed for an orc, and, I had to admit, quite attractive. There was none of the hard seriousness of Gol the Clanless, nor the innocent, wide-eyed wonder of Nagra Toothbreaker.
Adra shifted in her chair and smiled faintly. She was aware of my gaze and was perhaps appreciative of it, considering her question.
“Would you like to see me naked, Splitter of Skulls?”
I paused as my heartbeat quickened somewhat, then nodded. “Aye, Adra, I’d like that, provided you’re comfortable with it.”
“There is nothing intrinsically uncomfortable about nakedness,” she observed as she began unlacing the ties of her garb. “And your gaze pleases me, so why would I not want you to look upon my body?”
“I don’t know,” I replied with a shrug, and let my gaze roam as the shamaness disrobed.
First was the heavy fur cloak that she customarily wore. With a shrug of her shoulders, she shed it to hang over the back of her chair. Her tunic followed as she pulled it up and off to reveal a cloth wrap that bound her breasts. Crisscrossed scars marked her pale green flesh along with painstakingly rendered tattoos in intricate patterns.
“Do you want help?” I asked when she began to struggle with the bindings.
Adra replied with a shake of her head. “This is for me to do and for you to watch, Splitter of Skulls.”
“You can call me Bardak, you know,” I complained then leaned back in my own chair. There was no keeping the secret of my arousal, as it did a good job of making a tent of my pantaloons.
She looked at me for a moment, her black hair hanging over her eyes as she smiled. “If you wish.”
The binding fell away to join her leather tunic on the floor of my cabin, baring a pair of shapely breasts capped by peaks of a significantly darker green that immediately crinkled up and hardened. She took a deep breath, and for a moment, our eyes met.
“Are you pleased?” Adra asked.
I nodded and swallowed hard. Had Mary planned this with the shamaness? Or was it entirely a product of Adra’s making. Either way, she seemed happy with my reaction as she rose slowly to her bare feet. Beneath the cloak, tunic, and wrap, all that remained was a breechclout of some kind of fabric, cotton most likely, that was fastened at her waist by a simple rope tie.
That made for an almost anticlimactic end as Adra undid the knot and just let it all fall away. Her body was as muscular as any female orc’s, with broad shoulders and hips, and healthy, sizeable breasts. She was surprisingly hairless with a pronounced cleft between her legs. The tattoos and scars formed an intricate pattern over her skin, almost like a layer of decorative and potentially spiritual clothing or jewelry. The only thing she still wore was the necklace that held her tusks.
Adra slowly turned a circle, allowing my gaze to fall on every inch of her before she faced me, arms at her sides and chin up, bearing a smile on her tuskless face.
“Now,” she said softly, her eyes sparkling. “I believe it is your turn.”
Of course, it was. I could barely contain myself as I rose from behind my desk and walked slowly around to a spot of clear floor. My garb, though, was a lot less complicated, consisting of little more than my pantaloons. I didn’t wear boots or armor aboard ship, and I enjoyed the cold wind on my skin.
When her eyes fell to the prominent tenting in my pants, a smile tugged at her lips, and the skin of her cheeks darkened. Was the mysterious Adra Notch-Ear blushing at the evidence of my desire for her? I grinned and put my hands behind my head to flex my heavy pectorals in a brief moment of vanity. It had the effect I wanted, as she blushed even more.
Slowly, then, I reached down and undid my belt before pushing my pantaloons down over my narrow hips. The waistband caught on my erection for a moment, drug it down, then it was free, bouncing up hard enough to slap the skin of my lower belly. Adra gasped, and the look in her eyes was one of sheer appreciation.
“You are quite the orc, Bardak,” she murmured, finally using my name. “Will you show me how you are able to keep your three wives happy?”
“Do you wish to join them?” I countered. “I suspect that if Mary doesn’t object, neither will the others.”
“Mary was to speak with Tabitha and come to interrupt if there was any objection, and Ligeia seems to be the least possessive creature I have ever encountered,” she replied. “I would happily become a part of your family, yet I must remain your teacher.”
“I don’t exactly rule with an iron hand,” I said with a chuckle. Somewhere in there, we had moved closer to each other. Our bodies didn’t touch, though, not yet.
Adra gave a serious nod. “Then I accept, Splitter of Skulls. Make me yours.”
That was all I’d waited for. I swept the shamaness up in my arms and bore Adra to my bed, depositing her among the blankets and furs before joining her. Instead of immediately diving in, though, I kept control and slowly ran my hands over her, beginning at her feet and slowly stroking her surprisingly soft skin.
I kissed the top of each foot, then worked my way slowly up along her legs, calves to knees to thighs, caressing, kissing, and nibbling at her scarred and tattooed skin. The soft gasps and murmured sounds that escaped her lips encouraged me further as I neared the joining of her legs. She parted them easily, a bit overeager, which I could understand from the teasing we’d given each other. Her folds already glistened damply in the faint light.
When I raised my head, Adra had stretched out on the bed, her hands above her head, and her eyes closed. Her firm, full breasts rose and fell with each rapid breath, and her body trembled under my touch.
“Are ye sure, lass?” I asked, switching back to my piratical brogue.
“Please,” she whispered. “It has been far too long for me, and I would have you break my fast.”
I wet my lips with my tongue and dipped them down between her legs after leaning up to plant a kiss on each hardened nipple. She had a pleasantly musky smell and was definitely ready for me. Her juices fairly flowed, and she cried out in pleasure with the first touch of my tongue between her legs.
The first climax I gave her didn’t take long at all, and I moved on up, kissing and licking the salt from the skin of her tight belly, then her breasts. Adra moaned and arched beneath me when I captured her breasts in my hands. I tested the waters, then, giving her flesh a rough squeeze before I pinched her swollen nipples. Much like Mary, Adra let out a little cry of pain that trailed into a deep groan of delight. Her hands caught my wrists and held them there as I slid my body up along hers.
Finally, our lips met. Hers parted beneath mine, and our tongues quickly tangled. My body pinned her, and she squirmed against me, our hot, sweaty skin rubbing enticingly together.
When the kiss finally broke, Adra murmured, “Take me. Please.”
That was the closest to begging that I ever wanted to hear the shamaness come. Somehow it just didn’t seem right to me for the confident and deadly Adra Notch-Ear to beg for anything, although there was also a surge of pride in me that I was the one that brought her to that place. Within moments, I was inside her, buried to the hilt as she wrapped her strong legs around my waist.
The first time was fairly quick for us both. Adra barely held on past me en
tering her, and her sudden spasms and cries carried me over the edge after only a few thrusts. After that, she held me tight in a clasp stronger than any of the other women in my family, and I realized that I’d forgotten what it was like to be with another orc.
After that first frantic coupling, Adra and I settled into a rhythm, and we both took each other to completion time after wonderful time. She had elements of all the other girls, and they, of course, had elements of her. In preferences, she was something like Mary and Tabitha, but in sensitivity, she was like Ligeia, and the slightest touch could set her off.
These four would likely kill me, but I would happily die a warrior’s death.
Sometime later, we rested between bouts. Adra curled against my side, softly nuzzling my chest as I teased my fingers in her hair.
Inadvertently, my fingertips found the notch in her ear, and I couldn’t help but ask, “How did you get this?”
She raised her head a bit and chuckled softly before trailing her own fingers up and over my pecs. “It is not my most interesting tale.”
“I’d hear all of them, as we have time,” I said, “but tell me this one.”
“Hah, well,” Adra shifted against me, her damp skin sliding sensually against mine. “Once upon a time, I was a young orc girl of the Warbeak clan of the White Hand tribe. In my twelfth year, as is our custom, I set out on my rite of passage. We are a very spiritual tribe, and our rites are open. I had no idea what I had to do for mine, only that the ancestors would guide me, and if they deemed me worthy, I would return with my life.”
Brutal rites of passage were part and parcel among the orc tribes of mountain and forest alike. We all learned to fight from an early age, even if our later path might diverge from warfare to spiritual paths, trade, or crafting. My mind wandered a bit as I stroked Adra’s back while she continued.
“Three days out, I stumbled across a campsite, and an old orc was there waiting for me. He knew my name and everything about me, told me that the spirits had led him to me.” She stretched and squirmed a little against me. “I joined him and listened as he explained to me how the spirit world was adjacent to our material world, and how the elementals and the ancestors of all things dwelled there.”
