Varoon waved at a pair of nagas and stepped out from the mouth of a dark cave. The desert sun hit him, and he raised a calloused hand to shield his eyes. His other hand held a small covered basket.

Not far from the cave’s mouth was a covered wagon, which Varoon approached purposefully. He circled around to the back and brushed the cloth curtains aside. There were dozens of clay crates inside, each covered by cloth.

Displacing one of those coverings, the box was revealed to be full of hard-shelled, speckled eggs. Varoon took out a few matching specimens from his basket and put them with the rest.

He looked at the wagon’s contents, at the crates full of harpy eggs, with a frown. These children, not even born yet, had no control over what their lives would become. They were as helpless to the whims of adults as could be. Their mothers had abandoned them to hatch on their own, the nagas had cast them out like vermin, and they now rested in the hands of the Orc Lord.

Varoon thought of his own war-hungry mother and frowned, shutting the cloth curtains. He circled around to the front of the wagon, grabbed the wooden handles, and trudged deeper into the desert, putting orc territory farther and farther behind him.

Eventually, dark shadows appeared on the horizon: towering stones rising out of the desert, pockmarked by caves. Stray feathers on the sand made it more than obvious he had entered harpy territory.

The nest colony seemed abandoned, with most of the flock having migrated westward to fight a war. Varoon proceeded closer to the towering stones, hid the wagon somewhere discrete, and began searching the hollows.

After dozens of empty caverns, the place really did seem empty, but he refused to believe that absolutely no one had been left behind to keep watch over their home.

Eventually, he followed the sound of chittering laughter to a pair of harpies. He carelessly interrupted their conversation, folding his arms and asking sternly, “You two, a word.”

The pair swallowed their earlier levity and glared at Varoon, assuming defensive stances and spreading their wing feathers to look more imposing.

“Who are you, orc?”

“Why are you here? Get out!”

“I have a question for the both of you,” Varoon ignored their apprehension and complaints. He didn’t have time to entertain them. “Suppose you became a broodmother. What then?”

One harpy blinked while the other’s eyes widened.

“Fun question! Rude to the broodmother, but she isn’t here.” The excited harpy’s feathers smoothed down and she stroked her sharp chin with a tallon. “I would be served and groomed, and all the shiny bones and treasures would be mine! My nest would be biggest and highest.”

Varoon’s eyes narrowed slightly and he looked at the other harpy. “And you?”

“That sounds good to me,” the other harpy mused.

“What about the eggs and the young harpies?”

“They take care of themselves,” the second harpy shrugged.

“More the better! Bigger flock, more servants for me!” the first harpy cackled.

The obnoxious laughter was interrupted by a roundhouse kick that caved in half the schrew’s skull and snapped her vertebrae. She crumpled to the ground in an instant, and the second harpy screeched in terror.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Varoon lifted his chin and scowled menacingly down at the terrified bird woman. “Someone like me comes to take your eggs. What do you do?”

“Have them! Have them! Just don’t hurt me!”

A fist to the temple knocked the cowardly monster out cold. Varoon shook his head in disappointment and explored deeper into that particular cavern. He found a chamber at the back with a messy cage. A small, dark-haired human girl knelt inside. She kept as far back as she could, her eyes watching him sharply and her fingers clenched around a bone shard as a makeshift weapon.

Varoon ignored the girl and went to explore more of the cliff face.

He came across a few more harpies who had been left behind. Some were vile, selfish things that he bloodied without mercy. Others were shameful cowards which he swiftly incapacitated. When the sun was beginning to set, he was forced to acknowledge that there was no one here who had the capacity to do what he hoped for.

On a whim, Varoon returned to the caged girl. She was just as sharp as the last time. Just as thin and dirty too. Varoon took a closer look at her clumsy cage woven from sticks and mud and nodded at it.

“Why don’t you escape?”

The girl scowled. “I don’t talk to pigs!”

Something clicked in Varoon’s head, and he recognized the human: her attitude and her appearance, he was familiar with them, though he didn’t expect to run into her here.

“I recognize you,” he said, crouching. “You’re Runa, the human who made peace with my sister just because of her wings. Why are you caged here?”

Runa sent him a bitter glare, but answered his question despite her earlier assertion. “A dumb Orc wouldn’t understand, but I don’t need to escape.”

Varoon hummed slightly. “Suppose you became a broodmother. What then?”

The girl’s brow furrowed suspiciously. “That’s impossible.”

“Imagine someone like me has come to steal harpy eggs. What do you do?”

“Don’t you dare!” Runa moved closer to the front of her cage, holding her bone shard in as threatening a manner as she could manage.

“You can’t possibly hurt me,” Varoon said, “so how will you protect the eggs?”

“You won’t find them, and I’ll never tell you where to look. Even if you somehow did, I’ll warn the others and we’ll steal them back!”

Varoon gazed into the girl’s foolishly bold eyes for a time and eventually gave a curt nod. “You’ll have to do.”

Before the human could ask what he meant, he easily crushed the cage the girl was in and grabbed her by the scruff, carrying her kicking and screaming out of the tunnel. When she saw the two harpies on the floor outside her room, one clearly dead, she tried viciously stabbing at his arm with her bone shard, but it just crumbled against his thick skin.

Soon, they arrived at the hidden wagon. Varoon brushed the curtains aside, carefully removed one of the cloth covers, and showed her what was inside. Runa went still and quiet, so he set her down. She stood there, pale and silent, processing the reality in front of her. Instead of articulating any question in particular, she turned to look up at Varoon, hollow eyes demanding answers.

“Do you know that the harpies have gone to war?” he asked her. She nodded vaguely. “Do you know who they’re fighting?”

“My home Kingdom, Andorin,” Runa murmured, sounding suddenly unsure.

Varoon shook his head. “No.”

“… Then, you?”

Varoon folded his burly arms across his chest, staring at the many crates of eggs.

“At this rate, my sister will follow in the footsteps of those who came before her. Have you heard of the Arachnae?”

“Spider monsters,” she murmured. “Driven to extinction by a previous Orc Lord.” Runa clenched her fists to stop them from trembling. She demanded in a hoarse voice, “Why are you showing me this and saying these things?”

The War Orc, part monster and part magic beast, looked sternly down at the human woman. “Take them and run away.”

Runa scrunched her eyes shut as tears welled up in them, and she punched the War Orc in the chest as hard as her starved fist could manage. Trembling in place, she murmured, “You’re… not bad for a pig.” Then she trotted off and started pulling the wagon away before he could change his mind.

Varoon scratched at the golden bristles he had for hair and sighed, turning around to leave in the opposite direction.