Finding Her Heart (Orki War Bride #2)

by Isoellen

  Chapter 14

  The Woe Is Ever Hungry

  Instead of going to sleep, he kept her awake answering questions, teasing her with kisses and touches. Annabelle hadn't talked so much in years. There had been no one who cared to listen to her. Doku-ni looked into her eyes and heard her every word.

  She shared the tale of her life, the things she remembered since meeting him. He stopped her several times to ask questions. The more they talked, the more snippets of forgotten memories surfaced. She tried out Orki words as they came to her, and he corrected her pronunciation. Only laughing once or twice. She laughed too, feeling silly. Human throats and mouths were not made to form Orki words.

  She told him about becoming the Woman of Woe and death dogging her footsteps, real and imagined. He hugged her when the weight of sadness threatened, pulling her into his arms with a reassuring purr.

  "Orki create woe, bring woe, give woe to worlds. Anna, my redress, my treasure. Every word Anna say to Doku-ni shows Anna heart for Doku-ni."

  She asked, still confused, about the metal plate and his silence. He told her the story with bleak despair, recalling the loss of his redress—it wounded to hear it. Acting hastily, he lost his purpose for living. He left the village without her under a cloud of his greatest failure. Never defeated in battle, Benjere's rejection cut him off from the only battle he needed to win. He should have waited until Annabell had come of age. All the Orki knew of the growing distrust in the village, huumon's forgetting the Peace Law and their history.

  But Annabell responded well to meeting Zerzer. He had not wanted to wait and chance her learning to fear them. Not bound to huumon time or customs, he understood she was young, but he would wait until Zerzer said she was of age. No one questioned a war beast’s sense of smell. Zerzer would know when Annabell was ready for her first heat.

  "Many huumon words, few Orki words. Anna meet Eid, Eid teacher."

  As it grew late and she became sleepy, she realized that instead of riding at night tomorrow, they were going to leave the tree during the morning hours. "Why do we ride in the morning?"

  "This is the nesting grounds of the first heat. This is known to predators who have learned the smell of war bride. They will come. Danger to redress."

  "There is danger to the Orki?"

  "Danger to redress."

  Annabell couldn't imagine what danger there might be. There were plenty of small carnivorous hunters dangerous to people, yet what could threaten the war brides of the Orki, specifically? "But you killed all the raiders."

  "Breakers of the law die easy. Many hungries do not die easy. Swarm of one mind, oil from the earth by the hundreds. The hive will come. Anna listen, see only Doku-ni, stay with Zerzer, be safe."

  "A hive? Swarm? Like insects? What kind of insects? Doesn't sound very safe." Living on a farm taught her what a swarm of insects could do.

  "Hungries from before men and cities. They were meant to be alone, found queens. Many, many hungries, Annabelle will be careful, Doku-ni will take great care. Zerzer will take great care. Many hungries die in the light. Hungries fear the fire. Annabelle will stay with Zerzer. Doku-ni will use long knife. Kill the hungries, go to Homeland."

  "Homeland. Where you live? Do all Orki live together? How many other human women live there? Will I be able to see other people, other Orki?"

  "Homeland has big fire, big community, Annabelle will see what she will see."

  She wanted to know what she would be seeing. But he distracted her with more touches, building the urgency of her need until she lost all desire to do anything but take him inside of her.

  *

  They left the camp with the morning light of the Child bursting bright in slices between the trees. Crossing the river, Annabell kept her eyes out for dangerous fish. She thought she saw a shadow in the water, but no one raised the alarm. Nervous and on edge thinking of the hungries, she didn't know how to manage the possibility of facing new woe.

  Annabell's curse hovered over her, a dark specter of foreboding. Anxious, she washed her hands and face repetitively. Phantom dirt clung to her cheeks, and her palms were stained with blood-shaped memories. Scrubbing hard, desperate to get clean. "A little water does redeem. A little water does redeem."

  Doku-ni pulled her into his arms. "All is well, Anna."

  "Something bad is going to happen, and it will be my fault." The words slipped out. He couldn't understand. Woe hovered like a bank of storm clouds on the horizon. Dark and heavy, heavy with negative energy, she knew it would be a bad one.

  "Anna, be safe. Stay with Zerzer. Stay with torch."

  Safe within his embrace, his chest under her cheek, Annabell told herself she believed him.

  The land on the other side of the river had a less magical forest in comparison to trees big enough to house the Orki. Fewer greens, normal-sized woods. She recognized the Silverleaf from home, and the oak and knotted ruth. Following the path of an old, rock-lined streambed, the group threaded through lands that rarely saw humans. Only Orki war brides had come this way. Women adventurers, Annabell's ancient relatives.

  The group leaving the camp that morning doubled in size. With restrictions on what she looked at, Annabell had wondered if there were more native originals than before, but she had not been sure. Instead of being in the saddle with her, Doku-ni and all the other warriors walked. The organized formation of rows in front and in back of Annabell made the change in Orki numbers obvious.

  Doku-ni and others held long spears with wicked-looking pointed metal ends. Annabell kept her eyes on the back of his head, saw him lift his spear as if answering a command before breaking into a run. He ran smooth and lean, keeping pace easily with the war beast. Watching the movement of his muscles was one of the most enthralling things she had ever seen. For him, running was an effortless skill. This male had no limits.

  Focusing on him, she didn't see the first falling tree until separated leaves interrupted her vision. The tall skinny thing descended with a crash with no wind on a beautiful day and no explanation for the trees to be falling. Doku-ni said the hungries would come from the ground. Her heart in her mouth, she saw the second tree crash down in front of the riders. The War Beast and Orki didn't miss a beat, jumping over the greenery while somewhere a woman shouted in distress.

  Annabelle got her first sight of the hungries. As tall as adolescent children with ghoulishly wide, sharp-tooth grins over blunt pig snouts, their naked, wispy-haired bodies shone in the morning sun. Emitting a hum of clicking-ticking insect noises, they attacked the Orki party from both sides of the riverbed. Every time a tree fell, twenty, thirty, forty creatures, moving fast and desperate, poured out of the black hole at its base. Monsters of nightmares, bizarrely obscene with bulbous stomachs and exposed genitals, their numbers multiplied too fast to count.

  They moved as one in waves to their targets, as single-minded as an insectoid cloud of hunger, like beetles descending on a crop. Glossy with a viscous snail slime, they poured out of the black gaping holes left behind by the fallen trees, ignoring the Orki as if the warriors with their sharp edges and pikes were invisible, intent on racing to their goal. Only fire made them hesitate. Doing nothing to avoid being chopped in two, they kept their distance from the flames, their clicking increasing with angry distress when an Orki torch stopped them from their goal.

  A shovel through garbage, the hunting party kept moving, cutting through the hungries with spikes, ax's, and blades. The threat of pain did not slow the stunted creatures at all. Hunting for their survival, the swarm targeted the four women riding war beasts. Instinct forced them forward until the Orki lopped their heads from their bodies or punctured them through with a spear.

  A carrion smell reached Annabell. Reminding her of the raiders, bile rose in her throat. The things smelled like rot, death, and woe. A smell she would never forget.

  She knew it. She knew as soon as Doku-ni mentioned them, woe would come again for her. She could not escape the curse of the Mother and Father
moon.

  She didn't deserve to escape.

  Taking up the road, climbing on each other three deep, the sheer mass of the hive slowed the party to a stop. For every one cut down, ten replaced it. For every ten cut down, twenty replaced it. Within a matter of minutes, the party was no longer moving.

  Doku-ni fought with two others and their war beasts, creating a circle around Annabelle and Zerzer. It would be a matter of who could outlast who. Soon there were hills and mounds of gruesome dead hungries and severed body parts.

  Hundreds of sharp white little teeth were everywhere. They jumped onto Doku-ni, chewing at his legs before he could kick them off. Their bites didn't penetrate, but clinging bodies inhibited his movement. Too many to pin down with his spear at one time. Beneath her, Zerzer bucked and kicked, bit, chewed, growled—adding tooth and claw to the battle.

  Holding on to Zerzer, the cold screen of woe and empty pain descended over her. Everyone would die in the storm, but Annabell would remain at the center, left to bury the bodies alone.

  "Anna!" Doku-ni yelled.

  He threw a torch at her. Reflexively, her hands came up, fumbling with the thing, nearly dropping it. The hungries didn't like the flame. Clicking madly, the noise they made increased in angered distress. The torch fire smoked when it got near the hungries, as if ready to set everything alight.

  Fire.

  Their eyes were dark, tiny spots, and their noses were lifted, scenting the air, piggy-grinning-beetles. Farm girl Annabell knew the dangers of pigs and beetles.

  In the year when the black beetle population blossomed after a wet summer, valley farmers tried everything to save their crops from the infestations. The beetles could not be allowed to lay eggs, and no poison worked to rid the world of them. Only fire. These hungries were just the same. Although they had humanoid bodies, they disgusted her like that swarm of beetles. The crop had to be burned. Every crop with any infestation of the insects had to be burned. Many families lived off the community storehouse that year.

  Ahead of her, Annabell saw another group of Orki surrounding a brown-haired woman on the back of a light gray war beast. They, too, were struggling. The hungries were bold, relentless, mindless. Climbing over each other to get to the woman in the center of the circle. The dark skin Orki was prominent among them, the largest male of the group. He chopped down their enemies with vicious efficiency. Creating more bodies. The hungries were using the dead body parts to separate the woman from the warriors. The swarm acted with vicious hunger and intent.

  She watched the torches, Orki swinging their flames to keep the circle wide. When the blaze came near the slick hungries’ flesh, it smoked black and sizzled. As mad as the creatures were to get to their goal—the flames sent them careening over each other to escape. The hungries didn't want to be touched by the fire, nor did the Orki Warriors want to touch them. There had to be a reason for that, because it made no sense. Why not use the most effective weapon? Fire was the only weapon that worked against them. There were no answers to that question.

  And then it was too late. They separated the woman and war beast with a wall of dead flesh, pulling them beneath the tide of the swarm.

  Annabelle shouted. The deafening ticking of the hungries drowned her out.

  She couldn't do it again. She couldn't watch another woman suffer and do nothing. She was too awake today, too aware. She couldn't stay safe in her circle while her curse ate up another life. This thing needed to be done, right in front of her and she would do it. Blazing torch in hand, she didn't know why she shouldn't use it.

  Annabelle jumped from Zerzer, clumsy and stumbling, landing on her knees instead of her feet. Screaming, she swung at the enemy, not afraid to hit them. They lurched backwards, stood, running and falling toward the brown-haired woman. As fast as she left Zerzer behind, the hungries closed the gap. Stinking body pieces and grinning snub-nosed faces surrounded her on all sides, under her, before and behind. Ignoring the gore, she climbed over the top of them, hoping she had not gone the wrong direction. All instinct and impulse, Annabell wasn't thinking. She wasn't feeling. She would do what needed to be done.

  A thunder rose over the racket coming from the swarm, roars of outrage. The Orki realized his female was missing. Reacting to it, the monsters surged towards her. They drove the sliced-up wall of their dead hive at her so that she had to move to the softer ground of the tree line. The direction Annabell wanted to go.

  The other woman was a flash of color. Long, brown hair and white skin, dragged towards a hole in the ground. So close and so far away. Annabelle knew she wouldn't reach the woman in time. Naked and helpless, outnumbered by the sea of mucus-coated evil around her, outnumbered. If that poor woman went down that pit she would become the next hungries queen.

  No. She wouldn't.

  Annabell threw her torch toward the trees and the woman as hard as she could. A chance. It was a chance.

  Hungries scattered. But the torch landed to the side of the hole, away from the woman. Not close enough.

  Annabell Roe, Woman of Woe failed. She risked everything, and she failed.

  No protection in hand, the hungries swarmed her in a heaving mass of insects, pulling her down, smothered her inside a living, heaving tube of flesh–hiding her from the Orki. Naked with disgusting little dripping twig pricks, they had her by the arms and hair. Clawed hands were everywhere. Pulled down and lying prone, they passed her from one to the other—ants moving food to the nest—toward what she assumed would be a hole in the ground.

  Instead of fighting to get away, she fought to get her right arm free and her leg lose enough to get to her favorite boots. The hungries hold was tight, but greasy.

  Hurry. She had to hurry. She got one arm free, bucked and kicking, and managed to get her heel in her hand and the packet of ten matches. The longer she took, the closer she came to becoming royalty. Annabelle needed to create fire before she got to a hole. Made to ignite wood, these were short, quick matches, a fire that burned hot and bright. The dim-eyed hungries would hate it. Annabell lit one with her thumb, a flick removing the wax coating. Flaring as bright as a small star, she knew she only had a few seconds to hold it.

  She counted to five, fast, and threw it to the side. Trying to escape the light, the nasty creatures were like the beetles in the fields, scattering to escape. Still lit, the match landed on a hungries shoulder. It caught fire, sizzling, smoking, little eyes bulging and hair crackling. The thing ignited with a whoosh, before exploding, along with every hungry touching it, a chain reaction of horrendous sizzle, pop, and burning. Their burning parts were sparks in the air, landing in a red rain to set fire to plant life. Anything and everything touched by burning hungries caught fire. Annabell found herself caught in a circle of flames, laying on chopped dead hungries that caught fire easier than dry straw in summer.

  Now she understood.

  Abandoned by the living hungries, she had a second match ready to go when Zerzer pounced on top of her, standing over her like an enraged mother.

  Covered in blood and hungries fluids, Annabell tried to push Doku-ni away when he dragged her into his arms against his chest. Rumbling loudly, concern and anger covered his usual calm expression in a mask of frustrated outrage.

  Throwing that torch, seeing the other woman and the other Orki, she broke the rules. They were not smart rules, and she didn't really understand them. But she'd do it again, even if she had failed.

  She'd missed. Was the brunette dead?

  Dragged half-naked across the floor of the forest by the hungries, she was covered in scrapes and bruises, her ankle twisted and hurting. Annabell asked after the woman, but her furious White Eyes Orki stayed silent. Anger vibrated through him, yet he handled her carefully, cradling her grubby body close to his.

  That woman might be dead, but somehow, the woe had not come to take her white Orki away from her too.

  Nestled against his chest, Annabell ignored the words flying around in her head. The world had gone smoky and gross. S
he survived, but she always survived woe. It became clear, however, that the reason the Orki didn't hit the hungries with the fire was because they didn't want to start a forest fire, they didn't have the resources to put it out.

  "So many hungries," Annabell said against Doku-ni's chest.

  "Redress in heat draw many. More than before. No memory of this many. One redress woman, two Orki war parties, pass through to the Place of Good Rock."

  "With myself and three others, there were more queens to draw more hungries."

  "Last queen dead. No queen long time."

  This explained the maddened state of desperation. The hive needed a queen. Today's battle was likely the entire hive. "Why didn't you tell me those things were combustible?"

  "Thought redress woman had sense."

  Chapter 15

  Not The Woe I Thought I Was

  Holding her in his arms, on top of the fast moving Zerzer, Doku-ni checked Annabell for injuries. With no concept of modesty or dignity, his hands went everywhere, meeting all of her attempts to hide herself with impatience. They were outside, in the middle of the day, on top of a war beast, traveling with other males, but that didn't matter to him at all.