AllFreeNovel
Share Us
For Gerrard’s waist. That huge arm slipping around him, grasping him, and then — dragging him up. Setting him onto his shaky, staggering feet. Upright.Alive.
And close enough that they could be… embracing. Close enough that Gerrard could smell the orc, could feel his rapid breaths, could have leaned forward and tasted his scarred, sweaty grey skin…
Gerrard flinched all over, but for a brief, horrifying instant, he couldn’t seem to move. Could only seem to stare up at the orc, his breath heaving, his heartbeat still clamouring in his throat. What the hell. What the fuck was happening. Did the orc want to cut him down like this, maybe make him fight again, force him to keep at it until he collapsed from the exhaustion and then —
“Go,” the orc hissed, his deep voice barely audible amidst the shouts and clangs echoing through the fog around them. “Run, human.”
Go?Run?Gerrard couldn’t understand, couldn’t follow, couldn’t possibly look away from the orc’s grim, glinting black eyes. The eyes that still spoke of that damnable pity, or even regret, and —
“I said, run!” the orc growled, his eyes suddenly alight with rage, with pain. “Run, you stubborn man, before Idestroyyou!”
And that — that, Gerrard understood. The awareness shooting bright and blinding through his shaky body, his streaming thoughts. Run.Run.
But first, he… nodded. Nodded, ducking his head toward the orc, as if in obedience. In deference. Ingratitude…
And then he shoved away and staggered off, screaming for his men as he went.
3
The fallout, of course, was hellish.
“I told you not to retreat again!” General Livermore hollered, his beady eyes bulging as he paced back and forth in his large canvas commander’s tent. “You disobeyed a direct order, Lieutenant!”
Gerrard’s frustrated exhaustion was already tilting toward recklessness, toward rage — and he heard his cursed mouth laugh, even as he reflexively rubbed at his shoulder, felt the pain flash and judder beneath his hand. “Tell me, General, what would you have preferred?” his tired voice demanded. “For all of us to die out there, and leaveyouhere unprotected and alone, so the bastards could come for you next? You think they’d have trouble breaking through the gate or the palisades, without any guards? You think they’d be kind to you, while they kill you?”
Gerrard’s scrambled thoughts had lurched back to that moment with the orc, to his own shameful terror at that threat of a slow, painful death. And for an instant, Livermore’s pale, twisting expression echoed just how he’d felt in that moment, when he’d been cowering and trembling in the dirt before the orc. Raw, hunted, exposed. Weak.
“You weren’t supposed to die,” Livermore snarled, a little too late. “You were supposed towin!”
Gerrard laughed again, the sound scraping painfully in his still-ringing ears, as his exhausted body sagged heavier onto the hard wooden stool beneath him. “We were outmatched, and outnumbered,” he shot back. “Those orcs had better weapons and better defense, they’re better at fighting in shitty conditions like this,andthey’re probably better fed, too. And like I’ve been telling you all week, there’s no tactical advantage to taking that camp! What’s in it for the men? For me? Why even fuckingbother?!”
It came out sounding plaintive, pathetic, almost pleading — and Gerrard probably deserved the deluge of shouting from Livermore that followed. The stream of justifications, the tired blather about honour and pride, about defending one’s home and women and children from those cruel, evil, conniving beasts, who would plunder and pillage and torture in the night, and steal helpless women away to bear their deadly sons, until the entire realm was laid to utter waste beneath the horde’s brutal rampaging feet.
Gerrard only half-listened, his body sinking heavier onto the stool, while his overtired brain made useless, silent objections. He had no home. No family left to defend. He’d never had the slightest interest in taking a wife, which meant that children were some abstract, far-off impossibility. Beyond his soldiers, and his occasional bedmates — which were already few and far between these days, because he didn’t fuck subordinates — Gerrard had no one to protect, to support, to care for. No one who cared in return.
And despite all Livermore’s ranting claims about the cruel deadly orcs, that orc todayhadn’tbeen cruel. He’d fought clean and fair. He could have easily killed — or tortured — Gerrard, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d helped him up. Sent him away. Saved his life.
He’d…pitiedhim.
And the more Gerrard thought about it, the more humiliating it all became. Not only had the orc roundly defeated him, but he’d watched him cower and shiver at his feet. He’d made Gerrard weaker than he’d perhaps been in his life, and then he’d let him keep living, out of pity. As if Gerrard had been some innocent, easily overwhelmed greenhorn, rather than an experienced lieutenant, a veteran of almost fifteen years’ standing, with countless kills and victories to his name. And Gerrard was one of only a few dozen active lieutenants in the well-respected Preian army, and he’d been personally promoted by the army’s High Commander, the extremely influential Duke Warmisham himself. And Warmisham was one of the realm’s wealthiest, most powerful noblemen, and…
And in the face of the orc’s pity, what had Gerrard done? He’d bowed his head. He’d…deferredto the orc.Thankedhim. And then he’d run off, and… and…
“Where’s my sword?” he croaked, cutting off Livermore mid-rant. “Did I have it, when you dragged me in here?”
Livermore’s mouth pursed, his beady eyes narrowing, and Gerrard’s gaze wildly darted around the tent, while yet more shame thundered through his ribs, his skull. Had he left his weapon on the battlefield? What, at that blasted orc’s feet? As some kind of fuckingprize?!
“Why should I know where the hell your own weapon is?” Livermore snarled back, crossing his arms against his pristine blue uniform. “You probably left it on that battlefield for the orcs, when you directly disobeyed my orders, and deserted your post like the incompetentcowardyou are!”
Gerrard couldn’t hide his flinch, his bitter hiss through his teeth. And that was triumph in Livermore’s eyes, victory, as he stalked closer, looming over Gerrard’s slumped, exhausted form on the stool. “You failed me, and your men,” Livermore’s grating voice continued. “At least two of them are dead, and many more are injured! And as punishment for your shameful behaviour, I’ll be writing to Duke Warmisham and Head Command at once, and demanding they strip you of your rank, as well as your pay for this abjectfailureof a mission!”
What? No. No. Gerrard’s body snapped to horrified stillness, his eyes shocked wide on Livermore’s face. The coin he could handle, but — his rank? That vaunted title of Lieutenant, the palpable proof of all his dedication and determination and damned hard work — Livermore was just… taking it away? Just like that?
“But — you can’t,” Gerrard stammered, his breath hitching. “Sir. I’ve served for fifteen years. Half my life. I’ve led dozens of battles and skirmishes, and won many more than not. We couldn’t have won today. We couldn’t. I almostdied.”
But the weakness was clearly consuming him, crushing him from the inside out, because he was fucking begging. Just like a coward, like the innocent, overwhelmed weakling the orc had thought him to be. And Livermore thought it too, Livermore was smirking at him, knowing full well Gerrard had been defeated, yet again.
“I’ll hear no more of your insubordination, Gerrard,” Livermore said crisply. “If anything, you should be bowing before me, and thanking me for not having you bound to the palisades andflogged!”
