Rapture by L.V. Lane
CHAPTER SEVEN
Winter
ARRIVING AS WE did by horse, I am not fully prepared for the impact of being on the streets. At Jacob’s suggestion, we have waited until it is busy. The cobbled streets are dirty, dusty, and crowded by the time we emerge. Carts lumber past, wooden wheels creating a drumbeat as they rattle over the cobbles. Humans, orcs, and those of mixed race hasten to business. Shops are open with wares on display. The sellers cry out to those passing, seeking to gain their attention. Children play among the chaos, grubby waifs, darting and laughing… One steals an apple from a shop stall. The shopkeeper chases him off with a roar.
“I will take us eastward,” Jacob says. “It will not always be a direct route, but if you feel we are drifting, let me know.”
And so begins our day.
It is like a strange, skewed reality, seeing the orcs rubbing shoulders with their human counterparts. Narrow streets are made dark and bleak in the shadow of the buildings. The air holds onto the chill of night, like snow may fall, and my breath makes a cloud before me as we walk.
The bustle of the commercial tavern district gives way to broader avenues as we near the center. Buildings rise higher still, with three, four, and even five stories. All of them are in shades of black or grey.
A great sprawling market fills the central square. Multicolored stall awnings, grubby with age, jut up against one another in a network of passages. Chickens, geese, dairy produce, vegetables, fish and eels, leatherwork, and bric-a-brac of every kind imaginable are all displayed.
We skirt the edges, but the din of conversation and cries are an assault upon my ears after the peacefulness of Sanctum.
On the other side, the buildings turn more industrial. Horse and cart, men, and orcs crowd the cobbled streets as goods are ferried about. The sounds of hammering, clanging, and shouted orders replace the bustle of the market. Blacksmiths, weapon crafters, tanners, leather and woodworking slot up against warehouses. Great wooden doors are propped open to show workers, stacked barrels, and crates.
I am conspicuous here, a smaller person in the shadow of a larger one.
The danger creeps under my skin. I have not been in the presence of so many orcs since the day we fled Sendar to Sanctum.
Ahead, a cart is unloading. Two giant orcs, one grey of skin and one a mottled green-blue, unload barrels into the warehouse. They pause their task as we near, eyes tracking us. My mind drifts to considering how Jacob could possibly keep me safe. He is young. Even if he has taken blood regularly, he cannot match an orc, never mind two.
The first flurry of snow begins to fall, sticking in patches to the black cobblestones of the streets.
“The humans of Bleakness trouble me far more than the orcs do,” Jacob says.
I glance up at him from under my hood.
“I am attuned to you, mistress,” he says. “Even without the Meld.”
The barb slips off his tongue without a hint of impudence. The Alpha is skilled in skirting the line of disrespect.
“Why humans?” I ask.
“Orcs are well integrated here. Not all orcs are Blighten, just as humans have different lords, kings, and ways. Bleakness is far from the orc stronghold and the dominion of their dark masters. The worst thing you will find here are the human slavers and the cutthroats who prey on other humans.”
His words rock me such that I stumble. A lock of my red-gold hair escapes my hood just as we pass a darkened alleyway. Three men stand there, smoking—dirty, unsavory types that make my skin crawl and my heart lodge in my throat.
I thrust the lock back.
Too late. They step onto the cobbled street, blocking our path. One withdraws a wicked curved dagger, another a length of chain, and the final man a club from inside his jacket.
There are people on the street, carts trundling past, the two orcs are no more than a hundred paces away, but no one pays us any heed.
“Stay close to me, mistress,” Jacob says. “But not too close.”
I am trying to assimilate what close but not too close is when Jacob lunges forward. He snatches the club right out of the thug’s hand, pops him in the face with the narrow end, and swings it down to bat the dagger from his companion. The club is flipped right way in his hand before he bashes the third chain bearing man up the side of the head.
The chain swings toward Jacob’s head, even as the man holding it crumples to the street.
The club flashes left and right, wreaking destruction and pain upon the thugs, until all three men are unconscious bodies upon the icy ground.
He tosses the club at the nearest man and pauses to wipe blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
Our eyes lock. His hand returns slowly to his side.
I can’t work out how his lip is bleeding, for I did not see him take a single blow.
The chain maybe, I decide.
As he steps toward me, I suffer an irrational urge to turn and flee.
Fisting my arm, he draws me bodily into a brisk walk. “We cannot linger, mistress. And for fuck’s sake, keep your hair out of sight. Should they happen to catch a glimpse of your ears, we are well and truly fucked.”
His rebuke stings. When was the last time I felt like a fool?
So isolated has my life been, I can barely remember interactions, let alone harsh words.
Worse, I deserve every one of them.
It takes several blocks to get my trembling under control.
I am no stranger to battle or conflict. I survived the great breaking when we fled to Sanctum all those years ago. I was merely a Blood then, young, and naïve in many ways. Blood was a commodity that I gave freely to any warrior for the asking. Yet I have never seen a warrior strike with the lethal grace with which Jacob did.
Has time dimmed my memory?
No, I do not think it has. It calls to question what a man so young might become should he have access to high Blood.
Was that why Cecil paired us together? Does he see the potential in Jacob, both now and in the future, and is seeking to hasten that change along? Few warriors have access to high Blood anymore. There are so few of us, and fewer Blood make the transition to high Blood.
The snow begins to fall heavily, sticking in greater patches and forming low drifts at curbs and corners.
“We are close to the docks,” Jacob says. “Do you still sense it?”
“Yes,” I say. “This is the right direction.”
It seems unlikely we should find it so easily. Yet the stone worn around my throat hums.
How did the Kotan reach such a point where I, a Blood who has long abstained from matters of the war, is considered the best choice?
High Blood, Blood, we are both in decline. I have heard whispers from the younger Breeders and Feeders that we are a fallen race falling into obsolescence. That the changes within us, the lack of higher Blood being born for many centuries, is tied to the inception of the binding.
I feel our decline myself, yet I do not know how to stop the slide.
It is not the binding. I refuse to accept that.
Lost in my thoughts, I am startled by the heat emanating from the keystone nestled between my breasts.
I halt abruptly.
Jacob stops too, brows drawing together in a frown. His gaze lowers to where I have pressed a hand over the keystone.
“It is here,” I say. “It is not a false impression. It is the true stone. It is here.”
Only now do I take in my surroundings.
Bellowed cries merge with the rumble of passing carts over the wooden wharf. Above, seagulls ride the air currents, squawking at one another as they weave and dive for scraps, while the salty air carries the scent of tar, spices, and refuse. Sea vessels of every kind, from fishing boats to merchant ships, line the wharf.
A great thrum reverberates through the soles of my feet, drawing my attention past the common industry.
Two galleons, tall-masted and proud, also line the wharf. Flags flap at the highest masts, bearing the red on white war ax—Blighten.
Gangplanks are down, and rows upon rows of Blighten warriors in full battle gear march into the open double doors of a grand warehouse. Green, grey, blue, and mottled combinations, tufted ears and tusks, they bear either ax, mace, club, or sword. Their booted feet, making a great roar as they pound against the planks, is what first arrested my attention.
So many.
Too many.
Surely they could not all fit inside? There must be hundreds of orcs unloading. “Where are they going?” I ask.
“To war,” Jacob says.
I blink as I take in this indisputable fact.
“Goddess help us,” I say as a realization dawns. “They have a portal inside there.”
