The Orcs remained silent for some time. Their ragged breathing could be heard, and Jinxton thought he could hear their thumping heartbeats.
“If you do not wish to talk,” the Widow cooed, inching herself closer to the Orc prisoners, “then you shall be the rest of my dinner on this joyous night.”
Her pincers sprang outward again then clashed together, making a heavy, metallic clink-clink-clink.
“I’ll talk,” the Orc with the missing eye yelled. He scrabbled backward until he hit Jinxton’s shins. Jinxton growled at him, but the Orc didn’t answer.
“Good, good, goooood,” the Widow said. “What are your names, my friends?”
“I-I’m Graxon, and this big fella here is Bomid. We was there in Ashbourne, just like the King and Urlik said we was supposed to be, but there was Dragon Tongue there, the blimey bastards, and the witch with the music box had more friends than we thought she was gonna.”
“More?” the Widow asked, leaning forward.
“Yeah, yeah, more,” Graxon said, as the other, more rotund Orc stumbled backward.
“What of the rest of your army?” asked the Widow. She raised one leg and wiped black spittle away from the corner of her mouth.
“They were destroyed,” Graxon answered.
“Destroyed by Dragon Tongue, who are essentially one-dimensional wizards?”
“No,” Bomid said.
“Then by what?”
“By the Rogue Dragon.”
The Widow lifted her massive head, not an easy task, and laughed. Flecks of black armor flew from her mouth and sprayed across the Orcs. They didn’t even groan or squirm away. They just let it hit them.
“A Rogue Dragon? Do you realize how utterly ridiculous that sounds?” the Widow asked, humor laced within her voice.
“Yes. Yes, we do. But we know what we saw…” Graxon said.
He spoke with ignorant force. Not many used such a tone with the Widow and lived to talk about it; probably none at all.
“It was not a regular dragon,” Bomid added. “A normal dragon is much smaller. This…this one was huge. It could have swallowed the whole town, if it hadn’t been for…” He trailed off.
“Odarth, the Bright!” Graxon shouted. “That’s who it was! I heard the name from the lead Dragon Hunter before we—” He cut himself off.
“Before what?” the Widow probed.
No answer. They were practically signing their own death warrant, which pleased Jinxton. He would be glad to see such Orc scum eradicated. They, of all the races in Oriceran, deserved it—especially those under the watchful eye of the fat Orc King. An Orc who drank, ate, and slept away his rule; a king content with watching the world fall once more to the wizards, witches, and Elves.
“Before you fled the battlefield like cowards?” the Widow supplied. “I should have expected no less from Orcs…tainted Orcs, at that!”
The Widow boomed laughter. It was a sound laced with malice and evil, one that could melt skin from bone, and cause heart attacks in the healthiest of men. Jinxton had listened to it for as long as he could remember, but he would never get used to that terrible sound. It haunted his dreams, turning images of his beloved into torn portraits reserved for nightmares. He knew that sound would follow him to his death and beyond.
“We fled for our lives,” Graxon said. “I see nothing wrong with that, eh? Do you, Bomid?”
But Bomid was too scared to speak.
“No matter,” the Widow decided after a long moment of Graxon eyeing his Orc compatriot. “We will see whether you are lying or not.”
“ ‘See’?” Graxon said.
Jinxton noticed the informant’s hands were shaking, as was his voice. It was the first sign of fear the soldier had seen from the Orc. He guessed that the legend of the Widow did not stretch as far as she might hope. Maybe many moons ago it had, but no longer.
“Yes, we shall see,” the Widow repeated. She turned her gaze to Jinxton. “Please bring our new friends to my tree.”
“As you wish, my Queen,” Jinxton replied.
“Tree?” Graxon said as Jinxton seized the Orc around one skinny bicep. “I hate trees, eh. Surrounded by enough of them bastards when we were dragged through this cursed forest! We don’t wanna see no more trees!”
“I’m afraid you do not have much of a choice, Orc,” the Widow said.
As Jinxton dragged the two Orcs to the Blood Tree, Bomid going willingly and Graxon putting up quite a fight, the Widow began to move back to her platform. The ground shook so much that Jinxton had trouble keeping his balance.
“Now make them kneel, Jinxton.”
“Kneel,” he said to the Orcs.
Bomid knelt as soon as the word escaped the soldier’s lips. Graxon, however did not.
“I’m going to count to three before I do something you really don’t want me to do, my Orc friend.” Jinxton eyed the Orc warily and pulled his sword free from the sheath slung across his back. “One…two…”
He paused for a long moment, giving the Orc more time to rethink his decision.
When the Orc still didn’t kneel, Jinxton said, “Three.”
With a quick swipe of his blade, he sliced the Orc in the back of the leg. The Orc cried out, dropping as quickly as a bag of rocks.
“I gave you a fair warning,” Jinxton said.
The blood leaking from the Orc’s wound and escaping through his intertwined fingers was slick.
“You’re horrible!” Graxon yelled. “Horrible!”
“I am only doing my job,” Jinxton replied.
“Which is what you didn’t do,” the Widow added. “You will be of no great loss; a warrior should never defect.”
“It was a Rogue Dragon!” Bomid shouted so loud and in control that it caught all of them off-guard—and the Widow was not one easily caught off-guard.
“We will see about that,” the Widow said.
Her two forelegs pushed outward, as quick and deadly as two striking Vipers. The Orcs screamed as they went face-first into the soil surrounding the Blood Tree.
“Please,” Graxon said through a mouthful of dirt.
The roots drank up the blood leaking from the Orc’s leg greedily. The black liquid was there and then, in the blink of an eye, it
