Orcs Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the manacles but mostly because of a flogging he had been given after his capture during the battle. Vivid red weals criss-crossed his back.
    “Ah, my guest has arrived. Greetings.” The Queen’s syrupy tone held pure mockery.
    He said nothing.
    As she languorously approached, one of the guards jerked the trailing chain at the captive’s wrists. The man winced. Jennesta studied his robust, muscular frame, and decided he was suitable for her purpose.
    In turn, he inspected her, and it was obvious from his expression that what he saw confounded him.
    There was something wrong about the shape of her face. It was a little too flat, a mite wider than it should have been across the temples, and it tapered to a chin more pointed than seemed reasonable. Ebony hair tumbled to her waist, its sheen so pronounced it looked wet. Her dark fathomless eyes had an obliqueness that extraordinarily long lashes only served to stress. The nose was faintly aquiline and the mouth appeared overly broad.
    None of this was exactly displeasing. It was rather as if her features had deviated from Nature’s norm and pursued their own unique evolution. The result was startling.
    Her skin, too, was not quite right. The impression, in the flickering candleglow, was of an emerald hue one moment and a silvery lustre the next, as though she were covered in minute fish scales. She wore a long crimson gown that left her shoulders exposed and clung tightly to the outlines of her voluptuous body. Her feet were bare.
    Without doubt she was comely. But her beauty had a distinctly alarming quality. Its effect on her prisoner was to both quicken his blood and excite vague feelings of disgust. In a world teeming with racial diversity, she was totally outside his experience.
    “You do not show proper deference,” she said. Her remarkable eyes were mesmeric. They made him feel that nothing could be kept concealed.
    The captive dragged himself out of the depths of that devouring gaze. Despite his pain, he smiled, albeit cynically. He glanced down at the chains binding him, and for the first time spoke. “Even if I were so inclined, I could not.”
    Jennesta smiled too. It was genuinely disquieting. “My guards will be happy to assist,” she replied brightly.
    The soldiers forced him roughly to his knees.
    “That’s better.” Her voice dripped synthetic sweetness.
    Gasping from the added discomfort, he noticed her hands. The length of the slender fingers, extended by keen nails half as long again, bordered abnormal. She moved to his side, reaching to touch the welts covering his back. It was done softly, but he still flinched. She traced the angry red lines with the tips of her nails, releasing trickles of fresh blood. He groaned. She made no attempt to hide her relish.
    “Damn you, you heathen bitch,” he hissed weakly.
    She laughed. “A typical Uni. Any rejecting your ways must be a heathen. Yet you’re the upstarts, with your fantasies of a lone deity.”
    “While you follow the old, dead gods worshipped by the likes of these,” he countered, glaring at the orc guards.
    “How little you know. The Mani faith reveres gods even more ancient.
Living
gods, unlike the fiction you cleave to.”
    He coughed, misery racking his frame. “You call yourself a Mani?”
    “What of it?”
    “The Manis are wrong, but at least they’re human.”
    “Whereas I’m not, and therefore cannot embrace the cause? Your ignorance would fill this place’s moat, farmer. The Manifold path is for all. Even so, I am human in part.”
    He raised his eyebrows.
    “You’ve never seen a hybrid before?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Obviously not. I’m of mixed nyadd and human parentage, and carry the best of both.”
    “The best? Such a union is . . .
an abomination!
”
    The Queen found that even more amusing, throwing back her head to laugh again. “Enough of this. You’re not here to engage in a debate.” She nodded at the soldiers. “Make him ready.”
    He