Gesturing first towards the horses, then Yhalen, and finally the dog.
An ogre child, as tall as Yhalen but half again as broad, made a grab at him, his blunt fingers catching his braid and yanking him almost off his feet. The childish caw of laughter turned into one of fright as Vorja spun, snarling protectively.
Weapons came out then, pointed at the dog and Yhalen who stood beside her. Bloodraven did speak then, a sharp command to Vorja, who stopped her threatening growl and sat, hostility glowing from her eyes. Bloodraven said a few more words, his name and the clan from which he hailed among them.
There were murmurs of speculation that quieted as a large ogre emerged from one of the caves. Like the head female, his hair and clothing were heavily decorated with bones, polished rock, and beads.
There were streaks of gray in his braided hair and many an old battle scar on what flesh was visible.
The others cleared a path for his approach, and Bloodraven did what he hadn’t done for any of the others, bowing his head and making a sign of obeisance. There was a trembling surge of anticipation among the gathered clan, an expectation of violence. Perhaps even a hope for it.
Yhalen crouched next to Vorja, wishing he could blend into the background unnoticed like those other poor humans, and having no notion what he might do if violence did erupt.
He drew a breath of fear when the chieftain snarled and slammed out a hand, striking Bloodraven no halfhearted blow upon the chest. It forced Bloodraven back a step or two, but he kept his feet and did not reach for a weapon. Again and this time Bloodraven kept his ground, only the tightening of his fists indication of the effort it took.
The chieftain let out a bark of laughter and lifted his arm, fingers spread, which seemed a sign of sorts, for the tension bled out of the gathering and rumbling conversation started up again. Ogres began to move, gathering around Bloodraven and the gift of mountain horses he had inadvertently brought this tribe.
One of the females ventured close to Yhalen, and Vorja bared her impressive teeth, growling low in her throat. The female backed off a step and complained loudly and irately. Bloodraven canted his head casually at the complaint, and spoke a few words. Yellowtooth added a few of his own no doubt callous remarks. The female’s eyes narrowed, turning upon Yhalen with less than pleasant implications in their glittering yellow depths. She said something else, waving her hand towards the other humans sharply and other heads turned her way, gathering interest in the exchange.
Only weeks and weeks of close proximity gave Yhalen the insight to notice the small signs of displeasure that Bloodraven displayed. He said something else, and then with a sharp word called Vorja to his side, leaving Yhalen without her formidable protection.
“Endure,” Bloodraven said to Yhalen softly, then turned his attention back to the warriors, leaving Yhalen to the care of the female ogre.
No shorter than Bloodraven and at least as heavy, she jerked Yhalen up by the elbow, dragging him across the camp in her wake. There was no fighting her strength. It would have been suicidal to contemplate struggle in the midst of this camp, so he kept her pace as well as he could, trying not to cry out at the painful grip on his arm.
The human slaves he had seen earlier had vanished to an area beyond the main camp. It was a work area, apparently, where the handful of the clan’s slaves labored. Two younger men were planing a long tree trunk, while another, older one, industriously helped a young woman stretch a hide between poles to scrape and dry it. Yet another was hastily disappearing down a path with two large buckets attached to a pole that rested across his shoulders. None of them looked up at the female ogre’s approach, instead bending more assiduously to their tasks.
She hissed something that was beyond Yhalen’s ken, and then smacked him across the side of the head hard enough to send him to his knees on the muddy ground. He could barely hear the words she uttered next due to the ringing in his ears, much less understand them. Her face twisted in anger at his non-compliance. She lifted a foot and kicked him, catching his hip with the blow instead of his stomach, but it toppled him backwards regardless. He rolled into a wary crouch, favoring the throbbing hurt in his hip. He didn’t look her straight in the eye, knowing from experience that they didn’t like that. Bow his head and act humble, and maybe she wouldn’t beat him to death. Maybe she would calm down and let the other human slaves direct him.
She jabbed a finger at the oldest human, growled something, then with one last withering glance at Yhalen, she turned and stomped back to the gathering of her kin in the main camp clearing.
Yhalen drew a great breath of relief, dropping his head for a moment to thank the Goddess for escaping that encounter relatively unscathed. The older man said something to him in a tongue he did not entirely comprehend. There were hints of words that might have meant something, if the accent hadn’t mangled them so badly. Yhalen stood, staring about the dismal little human work area, at the flimsy lean-to against a tumble of huge rock and the evidence of threadbare blankets and bedding within its minimal shelter.
The humans were in a sorry condition, worse by far than the slaves that had come with Bloodraven’s little war party on their initial expedition into human lands. These were lean with malnourishment, and the skin visible was marked with old scars and new bruises. The woman was probably younger by far than her appearance suggested. Her face was tense with apprehension, and a long puckered scar ran from her temple down across her mouth and onto her chin. The older man was missing two fingers on his left hand and most of one ear.
Yhalen shivered and shook his head in incomprehension. “I don’t understand,” he said in his own tongue. The two young men paused in their work, now that the ogress was gone, to stare at him. He waved a hand vaguely southwest and tried to explain. “I come from the lowlands. The forests far beyond these mountains.”
“Lowlands?” the old man said and ran his hand through the air horizontally.
Yhalen nodded. “Yes. Yes. Do you speak my tongue?”
“I speak,” the old man said, but his accent was strong enough that Yhalen had to concentrate to comprehend his words. “You. Thaya take. Wash.”
Yhalen canted his head, not quite understanding. The young woman made a motion and scurried away from the stretched skin, eyes downcast and movements furtive, like an animal that had been beaten one too many times. She caught at Yhalen’s sleeve, urging him to follow. He did, having little choice save standing there and debating the old man’s blunt direction. The girl picked up a battered woven basket, large as a half barrel, and dragged it behind her as she approached the dwellings of the ogres. Yhalen caught the free handle and took its weight from her. She glanced back at him, then away.
Most of the ogres were gathered around a great fire pit at the center of the village clearing. Yhalen saw Bloodraven among them, speaking in those rough ogre tones that seemed foreign now to hear issuing from his mouth, after so long hearing him speak the smoother words of the human language.
Yhalen didn’t have time to stare, for the girl dropped her side of the basket and ventured into the first tent, emerging a moment later with a heaping armful of furs and clothing. He began to understand what the old man had wanted of him. They moved to the next tent and doubled their foul smelling load. The third dwelling, and an old female ogre barked at the girl and smacked her for no reason that Yhalen could discern, harassing her as she gathered the soiled laundry and fled outside with it. The old ogress followed to the flap of the tent and glared at them, causing the girl to almost fall over herself trying to drag the overflowing basket out of her range.
“What did you do?” Yhalen asked her as they made one last stop by the hide-covered mouth of a shallow cave. But the girl didn’t answer, perhaps not comprehending his language.
It took the two of them to haul the full basket back, and even then it was a heavy load. Two ogre children, one the very same that had pulled Yhalen’s braid when they had first reached this camp, harassed them on the way. They jabbered unintelligible words at them and lumbered alongside, attempting to shoulder them off their balance or outright shoving and pinching them as they labored with the basket.
The girl hunched her shoulders, enduring it. Yhalen wanted nothing so much as to drop the basket and shove them back, having less fear of these thick-bodied youngsters who were his own height, than he did of their towering elders. No few adult ogre eyes followed the antics of the children, though, and he held little doubt that retaliation would bring swift punishment. So he endured as well.
Once they reached the area behind the camp, the children gave up their torment and returned to the camp. The girl—Thaya, he thought the old man had called her—kept going, down the path the slave with the buckets had disappeared. It was a good walk down a narrow trail to a small mountain stream. It was shallow—in some places, a mere sheet of water sluicing across slick rocks—but there was a pool near a flat rock where the water was deep enough to be of use in the matter of laundry.
Thaya pulled out a chunk of strong soap from her tunic and set to work, gesturing for him to do the same. The water was miserably cold and he gasped and pulled his hands back the first time he dunked a piece of laundry. Thaya seemed immune it to, or else she’d simply become so accustomed to
discomfort that she no longer made issue of it.
His hands were red and numb by the time they’d finished, and he stood shivering with them tucked under his armpits while the girl surveyed the laundry they’d laid over the abundance of flat rocks to dry in the wan sunlight.
He had tried to speak with her during the chore, but either she had no comprehension at all of the tongues of warmer climes or no interest whatsoever in pursuing conversation. It left him little to do but dwell on his own predicament and seethe at the twists of fate that had led him here, reduced to slavery yet again at the hands of ogres. No matter that Bloodraven hinted it was a charade, he knew well enough that Bloodraven, had he had his druthers, preferred him obedient and collared. But he had to admit that even at his worst, Bloodraven treated his property with more care than this ogre clan seemed to know existed. If a man had to be enslaved to an ogre master, Yhalen grudgingly admitted that Bloodraven was preferable to any other.
Thaya had no intention, it seemed, of loitering near the brook while the laundry dried. She left the basket and indicated he should follow her back up the trail towards the camp. There were more chores waiting, and Yhalen was set to task after task with little time for rest in between. It was hardly less exhausting than traveling all day through snowy mountainous terrain.
Towards evening, the girl and one of the young men disappeared to tend the cook fires under the daunting eyes of the female ogress, and soon enough the smell of roasting meat permeated the air around the camp. Yhalen, who had eaten nothing since the scraps Bloodraven had tossed him that morning, felt his stomach growl longingly.
Darkness was well upon them before he realized that no food seemed forthcoming.
“Will we eat?” he asked the old man, who had finally ceased his work and settled down stiffly upon an outcropping of rock.
Thin shoulders shrugged. “Sometimes. If the bones have meat still. Your half-blood’s dog may get to them first.”
This proved not to be the case, however. As the clan settled back after devouring the carcasses the hunters had returned with, sated and content to speak among themselves, the ogre young, left to their own devices and bored with the talk of their elders, ventured into the slave area bearing bones and scraps of half-cooked gristle and fat. They tossed the scraps into the mud, taunting the slaves and laughing when the humans scrambled after what Yhalen considered refuse.
“
Kaz nar
.
Kaz nar
,” one of the young males cackled, then rushed forward in glee to grab the old man by the sparse hair on his head before scooping up a handful of mud along with a scrap of gristle and forcing it into his mouth. The old man didn’t fight it, and the other young ogres shrieked in enjoyment.
The other young man scampered back, out of the way, holding his muddy scraps to his chest, but Yhalen couldn’t stomach the brutality. He caught hold of the tunic of the young bully and jerked him back. The ogre child was heavy enough that even with all his strength, Yhalen only made him stagger, but it got him off the old man. He quickly retreated to the lean-to with the other slave.
The two younglings howled in outrage and came at Yhalen, meaty fists swinging. They were slow and ungainly, and he stepped out of the way of the first and hit the other square in the face with his own balled fist. It was not an expected reaction from a slave, for both stopped, blinking in shock before letting loose a stream of ogrish at the top of their lungs.
Yhalen took a breath and a step backwards at the sound of deeper voices roused from the camp.
Almost, he fled down the dark narrow path that led to the brook, but he heard Vorja’s barking and knew that Bloodraven was among them. Somehow, he felt the faint hope that Bloodraven would protect him from too great a harm.
The adult ogres were towering, shadowy forms in the night and they descended like a landslide upon the little work area. The youngsters cried out their complaints, and a big male snarled and lunged forward, snatching Yhalen’s arm and yanking him off his feet. He cried out as the big fingers bit into flesh and bone. His feet kicked helplessly in the air, a good three feet from the earth, as the ogre shouldered his way through the crowd to the central part of clearing, where the fire still burned.