Orc’s Prize by Mina Carter

Get captured, the boss said. It’ll be easy, the boss said.

The boss wasn’t the one who had to suffer the utter indignity of allowing themselves to be captured. Of having these pissant little elves think they could catch him. Gudvar ground his teeth together so much it was a wonder they weren’t a pile of dust and mere stumps in his mouth as he looked at the elf trap in front of him.

A simple crossroads-style trap, it was the sort he’d been avoiding since he was old enough to walk. It was an affront—an insult—to think such a simple magical construct would ever capture someone like him.

He was a half-troll, for tusk’s sake, which meant he was way more magically aware than most orcs. So much so that the king’s sorcerer, Skali, was constantly bugging him to learn realmagic. Sorcery.

He curled his lip back in disgust. Why would he want to go learning spells and incantations for battle? The bloody and brutal application of force and the two battle axes crossed over his back had always been good enough before.

And… they were good enough for the boss, Dread King Batak, as well. However, that weedling, Skali, nor his magic were sitting in a bush watching a bunch of elves practically tossing themselves off at the prospect of catching something other than fresh air in their shitty little trap. Somehow, even though it was all that fool Skali’s idea, Gudvar was sitting here with his ass on the line.

Just a lock of the fairy queen’s hair is all I need, the sorcerer had announced airily like it was as simple as strolling down to the nearest town market.

A lock of the fairy queen’s hair, oh, and some eggs and milk while I’m here.

Fucking asshole sorcerer. Gudvar grumbled as he worked his way back through the brush and undergrowth away from the elves’ trap. He didn’t want them to know he’d been sitting there for days. They’d built the thing almost on top of him while he watched them. They’d shit themselves if they knew trolls could go by that undetected now… That they’d learned new tricks thanks to the elves fucking persecuting them.

One of them had sat on his damn shoulder to eat his lunch for three days, for tusk’s sake. It was enough to make Gudvar need to take a three-day bath to scrub the stink off. It had been all he could do not to reach up and snap the little bastard’s neck. That would teach him to check that the rock he sat on was an actual rock, not a transfigured troll. Of course, if they had, they’d have come at him with sledgehammers, like they had for his mother, and given him an excuse to kill them all.

Sorry, boss, it was a dumbfuck stupid plan. They figured me out, and I had to redecorate the local trees with their brains.

King Batak wouldn’t be amused, but what could he do? Trolls bashed their enemies’ heads in. It was what they did. They bashed their heads in, shrank their skulls, and wore them as trophies on their belts. It was a time-honored tradition. He still had his mom’s skull belt back in the trunk in his tent. It was one of his most treasured possessions.

He still remembered chewing on it when he was teething as a tot. They’d doubled both as his teething ring and his rattle, keeping him amused when his dad had left him to go into battle. The orc army wasn’t big on the need for babysitters.

Half-orcs of any description were tough and hardy with enough common sense not to crawl under any wagon wheels or into any lit fires. And no orc would offer any youngling harm. They were all very aware that the kids were the army of the future, and they needed more soldiers than they had if they were going to win this. There was also the fact that no one who wasn’t an orc would be stupid enough to wander into the army’s main camp. Not if they wanted to survive. So the kids were perfectly safe.

He worked his way backward carefully so as not to make any noise. The nearby birds and animals helped with his subterfuge by continuing as usual. Not because of any innate magic or sorcery but because he smelled like nature and part of the forest to them. His grandparents and their ancestors had provided a place to shelter and gain protection from larger predators since time immemorial.

This gave him the advantage because none of them gave him away as he moved further away from the trap. It took him a couple of hours to do so undetected, mainly because it was the middle of the day with the sun beating down on him. During the night would have been easier, but he didn’t want to wait, conscious that the boss wanted this plan wrapped up quickly.

The king had been twitchy since the enemy forces had sent a faery bomb in with the tributes and almost wiped out Batak and the entire army in one fell blow. That had changed things. Whereas before Batak had gone to war with Oonais’s forces because his father had been at war with the bitch queen, the bomb had made it personal. Very personal.

So Gudvar suffered several rocks and what felt like branches trying to work their way under his loincloth, grumbling all the while under his breath. The boss had better appreciate this. Eventually, though, he was clear.

Heaving himself to his feet, he rose from the undergrowth like some elder god rising from the waves, startling a family of rabbits as the boulder they’d been cropping grass next to suddenly became a huge, two-legged form. But they soon settled down, recognizing him as a friend.

Watching them amble off with a smile, he turned back toward the road with its elf trap. The smile slid from his face as he roared and stomped toward the trap, playing the dumb, lumbering idiot the elves thought trolls were.

Now they just had to buy it, and he was home free…

She’d rather be anywhere but here. In fact, she’d rather pull her fingernails out with a pair of blunt pliers than walk willingly into the throne room of the faery queen’s palace.

She didn’t care that the throne room was held to be one of the wonders of the realms—huge with columns that disappeared into a ceiling covered in branches and leaves. No one knew if they were paintings brought to life by magic or real trees from the enchanted woods.

Living ivy made of gold wound around columns of oak, and the inlaid marble floor sparkled with the light of the moon, even though it was the middle of the day. The throne was on a large dais to one end of the hall, opposite the large double doors that Lady Adharian of Sharnwood Heights followed her hated husband through into the presence of Queen Oonais herself.

Lord Naebalar, the Queen’s champion, cast her a look over his shoulder that she didn’t need a spell to work out. Behave, or things would go badly for her. She resisted the urge to rub at her arms or shield the ribs on her left side, still black and blue from the last time she’d displeased her volatile husband. Any hint of discomfort or that she was even still injured after his outburst wouldn’t be tolerated. He’d apologized, which meant she had to forgive and forget; otherwise, she was a bad wife, carrying the argument on.

“My champion, so good to see you finally returned to us!” a feminine voice called out, and the queen walked down the steps from her throne to greet them.

Adharian gritted her teeth and plastered a serene, welcoming smile on her lips. She was quite the actress these days, especially when confronted with the most powerful fairy in the lands who could snap her neck with a click of her fingers… and the same fairy who her husband was trying to seduce.

Oonais was everything a fairy queen should be, all silver-blonde beauty with wide, innocent cornflower-blue eyes and masses of silver-blonde hair. It was easy to see why she had once been called the Summer Queen. She gave off an aura of warm summer days and sunlight… and it was all a lie. The queen was the coldest, most heartless of all the fairies, and just breathing the same air as the woman made Adharian’s skin crawl.

“It is an honor, as always, to be in your presence, my queen,” Naebalar replied, his voice deep and booming. His chain mail and armor rattled as he walked with long, dark hair cascading over shoulders that were broad for an elf. Not as broad as an orc, though. She cut the thought off instantly, refusing to even glance at the prisoner her husband’s men dragged behind them, bound and gagged. She kept her hood up, shielding herself from looking at him or being looked at.

“Of course. It always is.” The queen clapped her hands and demanded imperiously. “I trust you have brought me a present, Lord Naebalar.”

“I have indeed, your most gracious and beautiful majesty,” he announced, turning behind him to look back through the doors and clicking his fingers. “I caught this foul beast near the northern border and thought it would make an excellent centerpiece for the celebrations. We could hold a tournament for the right to slaughter it like the animal it is.”

Slaughter. They were going to fight for the privilege of killing another being. She swallowed the bile in her throat, breathing through her nose as four fae soldiers dragged in the prisoner.

At first glance, he was covered in fur. A massive, hunched-over beast growling as he crouched on the floor. But then he straightened up, the fur cloak falling back to reveal green skin, long black hair, and heavy tusks.

Her breath caught at the power and danger in his movements as he looked around with contempt in his silver eyes.

An orc. They’d caught an orc. And not just any orc. Naebalar had no idea how dangerous his prisoner was.

She did, and she quaked in her delicate little slippers. This was no ordinary orc. They’d caught Gudvar the Merciless, and he would kill all of them without batting an eyelid.

She was so concerned with keeping her face hidden from Gudvar, in case he recognized her, that she almost missed the tiny sound in the shadows. Like one rock tumbling against another.

“What was that?” Lord Naebalar demanded, whirling around, sword already in his hands. “Is someone else here?”

Her heart in her throat, she took a step back. When Naebalar was upset or nervous, she became the target. His gaze collided with hers, and he stepped forward.

“Is this you? Some lover you’ve arranged to meet?” he demanded, knuckles white on his sword hilt, even though there was no way it could be.

Not only did she not have a lover—she wouldn’t dare in case he found out and killed whoever it was—but she hadn’t even known they were coming to the throne room in the first place. So no way could she have arranged something even if she’d wanted to.

“No,” she whispered, her voice a pale thread of sound as she backed up.

The queen watched avidly. Not that she needed Adharian out of the way so she could have Naebalar all to herself; the queen took what she wanted anyway. Whether her husband’s actions hurt Adharian was of no consequence to her. She didn’t care whether Adharian lived or died, but she’d be more than happy to watch her beaten to a pulp for a moment’s entertainment.

“I haven’t… I didn’t—”

A growl ripped through the air, cutting off her words as the orc grabbed his chains and yanked on them. The guards holding each end tried to hold out, their feet scrabbling for purchase on the flagstones. With an almighty heave on the chains, the orc snarled again and dragged them through the air to slam into each other.

“Hold the beast!” Naebalar bellowed, running to put himself between the orc and not Adharian, his wife, but the queen. “I’ll protect the queen!”

Of course, he would. In no world would he care about his wife. She swallowed nervously, her throat dry as the beast stalked toward her, his nostrils flaring and his tusks glinting in the light from the torches woven into the branches of the tree columns.

She took a step backward, then another, and another. Until she bumped into one of the trees, her flight stopped by its thick trunk. Before she could slide to the side, the beast was there, hands slamming into the bark on either side of her head, his remaining guards behind him yanked off their feet.

Reaching out, he yanked the hood from her head and looked down into her face.

“There you are, little fairy,” he growled, his tusks mangling the delicate and light fae language. “Did you think you could hide from me forever?”