“Now that one, she is a warrior born.”
Durotan looked in the direction that Orgrim had indicated and his eyes widened slightly. Orgrim had spoken the truth. Standing tall and straight, her muscles rippling beneath smooth brown skin in the firelight as she reached and sliced a chunk of meat off the roasting talbuk carcass, the female in question seemed to Durotan to be the epitome of all the orcs valued. She moved with the feral grace of one of the black wolves, and her tusks were small but sharpened to deadly points. Her long black hair was pulled back in an efficient but attractive braid.
“Who—who is she?” Durotan murmured, his heart already sinking. Surely this magnificent female was a member of another clan. He would have noticed if such a beauty—strong, supple, graceful—had been in his own clan.
Orgrim guffawed and slapped Durotan on the back. The sound and gesture caused several heads to turn in their direction, including, Durotan realized, that of the lovely female. Orgrim leaned in to whisper the words that made Durotan’s spirits rise.
“You unobservant dog! She is a Frostwolf! I’d have claimed her for myself if she were of my own clan.”
A Frostwolf? How in the world had Durotan failed to notice such a treasure in his own clan? He turned his gaze from Orgrim’s grinning visage to look at her again. He found her staring directly at him. Their gazes locked.
“Draka!”
The female started and turned away. Durotan blinked, as if returning to himself.
“Draka,” he said quietly. No wonder he had not recognized her. “No, Orgrim. She was not a warrior born. She is a warrior made.” Draka had been born sickly, her skin a pale fawn color rather than the healthy tree-bark brown that marked most orcs. For most of his childhood. Durotan remembered the adults speaking of her in low whispers, as of one already on the way to joining the ancestors. His own parents once spoke of her sadly, wondering what her family had done that the spirits would curse them with such a frail child.
It was soon after that. Durotan realized, putting the pieces together, that Draka’s family had moved to the outskirts of the encampment. He had not seen much of her, busy as he was with his own duties.
Draka had sliced off several chunks of meat and brought them back to her family. Durotan noticed two younglings sitting with the orcs who presumably were her parents. Both looked fit and healthy. Feeling her gaze upon him. Draka turned her head and met his eyes steadily. Her nostrils flared and she sat up straighter, as if daring Durotan to look upon her with pity and compassion rather than admiration and respect.
No, this one did not need any pity. By the grace of the spirits, the healing of the shaman, and the power of the will he could see burning in her brown eyes, she had cast off her childhood frailty to mature into this … this vision of female orc perfection.
His breath escaped him in a whoosh as Orgrim elbowed him. Durotan glared at his childhood friend.
“Stop gaping, it makes me want to put something in your mouth to shut it,” Orgrim grumbled.
Durotan realized he had indeed been gaping, and that more than one knowing, grinning glance was coming his way. He returned his attention to the feast, and did not glance at Draka again for the rest of the night.
But he dreamed of her. And when he awoke, he knew that she would be his. He was heir to the chieftaincy of one of the proudest of orc clans.
What female could deny him?
“No,” Draka said.
Durotan was stunned. He had approached Draka the next morning and invited her to go hunting with him the following day. Alone. Both knew what that meant; male and female hunting in a pair was a courtship ritual. And she had rebuffed him.
It was so unexpected he did not know how to react. She watched him almost contemptuously, her lips curving around her perfect tusks in a smirk.
“Why not?” Durotan managed.
“I am not yet of age.” she replied. The way she phrased it made it sound more like an excuse than a reason.
But Durotan would not be put off so easily. “I had intended this to be a courting hunt, that much is true,” he said bluntly. “But if you are not of age I will respect that. Still. I would like your company. Let this be a hunt shared by two proud warriors, nothing more.” Now it was her turn to be startled. Durotan guessed that Draka had expected him to either push the point or leave in anger.
She paused, her eyes wide. Then she grinned. “I will come on such a hunt, Durotan, son of Garad, leader of the Frostwolf clan.”
Durotan thought he had never been happier. This was vastly different from the usual hunt. He and Draka had set a brisk, loping pace. All his challenges with Orgrim had given Durotan stamina, and for a moment he worried that he was going too fast. But Draka, born so fragile and now so strong, kept up with him. They did not speak much; there was little to say. They were on a hunt, they would find prey, kill it, and bring it back to their clan. The silence was easy and comfortable.
He slowed as they moved into open territory and began to scan the ground. There was no snow on the earth, so tracking was not the simple job it was in the winter months. But Durotan knew what to look for: disturbed grass, broken bush twigs, an indentation, however slight, on the soil.
“Clefthooves,” he said. He rose and scanned the horizon in the direction they had gone. Draka still crouched on the earth, her fingers delicately moving aside the foliage.
“One is injured,” she announced.
Durotan turned to her. “I saw no blood.”
She shook her head. “No blood, but the pattern of the prints tells me this.” She pointed where he had looked. He saw nothing to alert him to an injured beast and shook his head, puzzled.
“No, no, not this print … the next. And the one after that.”
She moved along, careful where she placed her feet, and suddenly Durotan saw what she had: The indentations of one hoof were slightly less deep than the other three.
The beast was limping.
He turned admiring eyes on her, and she flushed slightly. “It is easy to read.” she said. “You would have found it yourself.”
“No,” he admitted honestly. “I did not. I saw the prints, but I did not take the time to observe them in full detail. You did. You will make an excellent hunter one day.”
She straightened and looked at him proudly. Something warm and simultaneously strengthening and weakening rushed through him. He was not one to pray, but now as he looked at Draka standing before him, he sent a quick prayer to the spirits: Let this female look agreeably upon me.
They followed the trail like wolves on the scent. Durotan had stopped leading; this female was his equal in tracking. They complemented one another well. He had the sharper eyes, but she looked more deeply at what he found. He wondered what it would be like to fight beside her. Their eyes on the earth before them, they loped around a sharp turn. He wondered what it would be like to—
The great black wolf, crouched snarling over the same animal they had been tracking, whirled. For an endless instant, three predators regarded one another. But even before the mighty beast had gathered itself to spring, Durotan had charged.
The axe felt as nothing in his arms as he lifted and struck- It sank deep into the creature’s torso, but Durotan felt the retaliatory bite from yellowed teeth crunch down on his arm. Pain, white hot and shocking, coursed through him. He tore his arm free. It was harder this time to lift the axe with his arm pumping blood, but he did. The wolf had turned its attention fully upon Durotan, its yellow eyes boring into his, its mouth open in a roar. Its hot breath stank of rancid meat.