Love and Shkulaktoss - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Garauk Kargalish, son and only child of High Chief Magrul Kargalish of the Shattered Blade orc tribe, tasted a spoonful from the cauldron of tomato sauce and found it tangy and zesty, but somewhat lacking. The garlic was strong enough, but apart from that it fell a bit flat. After a moment's consideration, he gave his black pepper grinder several vigorous twists over it, then tossed a few generous sprigs of basil onto the surface of the simmering sauce.

Tonight, they would use the last trimmings of the mammoth carcass from their last big kill. Another tribe of orcs might have sat around the fire and stubbornly gnawed grisly remnants of the tough, harsh meat off of the bones, but Garauk had already cut it from the bone and was now braising it in a pot with a blend of herbs. It would go well with the sauce, served over wild rice, though Garauk hoped someday to make thin noodles for his meat and sauce instead, like the chefs in the grand human cities to the south.

The other orcs now paid little mind to Garauk's eccentric fixation on cooking, except during mealtime when they greedily wolfed down everything he served up. For a few hours each evening, during supper time, he was everyone's best friend within the camp. That took most of the sting away from the fact that he was not the warrior, nor the hunter, that a High Chief's son should be. He had gone so far as to not only learn to read and write in the fancy language of civilization, but to acquire several books on the subject of food and cooking and study them like a sorcerer. He had learned this well, but in his young adult life he had never picked up a spear or an axe to any worthwhile effect.

Nobody was more disgruntled by Garauk's culinary focus than his father, Magrul, who stomped into the kitchen in a sour mood as the tomato sauce simmered. "Make the best of the dregs of that mammoth, boy," he shouted, "we'll not be getting any more for some time to come."

"I promise you, father, it will be delicious," Garauk said. He was pleased at his father's sudden apparent interest in his cooking. But as soon as the words left his mouth and his scowl deepened, he knew he had spoken poorly.

"That's a weakling's answer!" Magrul bellowed. "The son of the High Chief should leap up, take hold of his spear, and swear an oath to kill ten mammoths before the week is up! You show weakness!"

"But it will be delicious," Garauk protested feebly.

"Pathetic!" Magrul bellowed. He inhaled sharply through his flat nose. He had a bony forehead with a tangle of knotty moss-green hair above it, and a jaw like the blade of a battleaxe; he was fearsome and terrible, the picture of an orc warrior. His lips, thin and green as blades of grass, pursed, and he spoke again in a low voice. "Did it ever occur to you to wonder why we'll be getting no more mammoths, boy?"

"Have we thinned there numbers too greatly?" Garauk asked timidly. He didn't even look like his father; his skin was a rich, dusky green instead of his father's pale, mottled green, his face was tall but not overbroad, with cute little fangs, and there was something tentative and soulful about his fuller lips and larger black eyes. He looked less like a predator and more like prey than other orcs, which didn't help his case. "I had thought perhaps the warriors were being too eager in their hunts last summer. It would benefit us to leave enough of them to breed-"

"Eye of the Father, will you shut your mewling face-hole, you pathetic worm!?" his father raged. "No. The reason we'll be getting no more mammoths is because there is no more Redfoot Pass leading down to the Valley of the Mammoths. And the reason there is no more Redfoot Pass is because an avalanche has swept down from the mountains where the dwarves have their newest mine! Their careless digging about in the stone has crumbled the mountain and cut us off from our food!"

"That is a shame," Garauk said soberly. "But to the west, have they not sighted herds of elk and aurochs? Or perhaps another walrus from the northern bay? I think I've learned a few more tricks that might make that meat more palatable, this time."

"Or perhaps dwarf, boy," Magrul bellowed. "Perhaps they're trying to starve us out, and I should have some carcasses brought back to see if you can make them taste like pork. I'm quite sure that cutting the meat from the bone with your carving-knives is the only time you'd ever find the nerve to take a blade to dwarf flesh." He paused, waiting for the barb to sink in, and when Garauk didn't respond, added, "Because you're a coward. That's what I'm saying. I'm calling you a coward, boy."

"Father, we are not cannibals," Garauk said, "though I've read it in human texts, as a rumor to make us seem more monstrous. Should we become the lies that they tell to justify their hatred of us?"

"Somebody should get some use out of the dwarf carcasses," Magrul said. "We have a lot of warriors who have a mighty taste for mammoth and are now sitting on their spears idle, grinding their teeth and blaming the dwarves. They want blood. As the High Chief, I know when it's my duty to show strength, and unlike you, you little wretch, I take it seriously. They may get dwarven blood yet."

"But the last several wars with the dwarves have been disasters," Garauk protested. "The sagas tell us of the days following the battles, when the dead outnumber the living. And it's no wonder. These dwarves are among the toughest peoples anywhere in the world, and wear armor of a better make than even the great human nations!"

"It's a pity I don't have a brave son to lead our warriors into battle and slaughter the stout little bastards," Magrul said. "Nonetheless, even if fortune and circumstance curse us again and your cowardice is vindicated, it is soon time. We are cut off from a valuable food source, and the tribe's numbers swell, and many of us are advanced in years. I count myself among those. And I will not die a coward's death of old age!"

"So... you'd rather be slaughtered by a dwarven axe?" Garauk asked, incredulous. "You honestly believe that our oldest and wisest members should be culled, that our tribe should be winnowed in number by dying in battle?"

Magrul snorted. "The dwarves are tough, but they breed slow, boy. If every three orcs that die take a single dwarf to hell with them, we will someday bring their clans to ruin and rule their mountains from inside a palace of their bones. I will do my part."

"But I can't be High Chief when you're gone, father!" Garauk protested. "You above everyone should see that!"

"Of course I do, boy," Magrul said. "I had hoped that some day, you would grow some courage. But since you will not, and since you seem so persistent in not breeding any of the ladies who would make themselves available to you despite your cowardice, you leave me with only one choice to secure the future of the tribe." He scowled. "If he survives the coming war, I will marry you to Ullegh Zagroth."

Garauk blanched. Ullegh Zagroth was the tribe's fiercest, strongest warrior, and very much a masculine brute of a man. That mightn't have been entirely a problem, if things were very different; Garauk admired his massive frame of lean muscle and his rugged countenance, and the idea of taking him as a husband could have had some appeal on a purely physical level. But Ullegh was at once a laughing madman, a rage-driven murderer, a remorseless warrior's warrior, a rabid dog kept on a short leash only by the sworn oaths and honored traditions that formed the foundation of their tribal society. He would not be a gentle or loving husband. There was also, however, a bigger problem of which Magrul was unaware.

"You will marry Ullegh, and he will take the title of High Chief by marriage and use you like a wife," Magrul went on. "He will, of course, have other women, and they will bear children that you will swear an oath of parentage to." Garauk started to protest, but Magrul silenced him with a glare. "This is not what I wanted for you either. But then, I have never gotten what I wanted from you."

"Father-" Garauk began.

"You disappoint me, boy," Magrul growled, and he stalked out of the kitchen.

In the next few hours, Garauk was again well-loved by rest of the tribe as they devoured the delicious meal he had prepared. Nevertheless, he was too preoccupied to enjoy it. He was thinking about Ullegh, watching him and the other warriors play shkulaktoss, a game wherein they threw a carved, weighted wooden disc called a shkulak towards a series of target poles set up in the distance. There was a new tension among the warriors now, as they approached even their play with a furious abandon. And none was fiercer in competition, nor more powerful and decisive in his throws of the shkulak, than Ullegh Zagroth.

It made Garauk think of the imminent war with the dwarves. So many of these warriors would die needlessly if when the time came. They would do so willingly, with a fierce sense of pride, and Garauk did not begrudge them that. But, in a selfish way, he wanted them to live. Many of them had once looked upon him with bemusement and scorn for his weakness and obsession with cooking, but things were different now. He was still a curiosity to them, not a true hunter or warrior, but someone whose value was evident every time the tribe sat down to a shared meal. They were his friends, his kinsmen. He liked them, even for the qualities he did not share; he saw who was most eager in the hunt, who was learning the art of the spear most skillfully, who was the greatest tracker and trapper, and he shared the joys of their accomplishments. But soon, any of them could die.

But most of all, Garauk was thinking about a certain dwarf, and that was Princess Katernin Ironcrown, daughter of King Grennaur of the White Mountain Clan of dwarves. His feelings for her were a secret to everybody. His father Magrul assumed that he felt nothing for women; the truth was that he felt so strongly about this one woman that he never paid any mind to the others. She was the most wonderful creature in his world: strong and resolute in stature, but still warm and gentle to the touch. She was beautiful, with long blond hair like spun gold, a noble, broad, ruddy, and strong-cheeked face that showed cunning and compassion in equal measures, and a body of solid, lean muscle that nevertheless had more than ample measure of round, pleasing softness at the breasts and bottom. It mattered nothing that she was not an orc: any man, of any humanoid race, would have found much to like in her. He longed for her now, his sweet, tender princess whose gentle, reassuring words would soothe his worried mind.

Continued in Chapter 2