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They broke through the canopy, a light rain misting Mika’s face as she was hauled up over the rail of a wooden skyship. Primitive oil lanterns lit its deck, too bright for comfort. Mika tried to pull her goggles down and keened as pain tore through her wounded arms.

Half a dozen enormous figures crowded around them, taller even than the elf. The bulk of their muscular bodies strained at the ornate stitching of their scaly leathers. Their skin was all in varying shades of stone-gray and green and ornamented with intricate scarification and even finer blue tattoo work.

They could only be orcs.

Though her ears still rang, her hearing was beginning to clear. And to her shock, the beasts spoke a language she knew quite well—Old Ahvar. It was a bit of an odd dialect of the tongue, but understandable enough.

“Nah, no humans. Didn’t see any, didn’t smell any, didn’t sense any,” the elf said in response to a question from one of the larger creatures which she hadn’t quite been able to make out. “But look what I found! Some kind of adorable blue…pig-lady thing! She smells real good!” He lifted her up and towards the largest of the orcs, who cringed back…the bare, sloped plane of his nose curling.

“Looks more like a bat lady,” said one of the other orcs a bit further back, sniffing the air as he leaned over the shoulder of another to get a better look. “Yeah, that’s a bat nose. And bat ears, defin—”

“It’s a goblin,” cut in the largest one, bringing up a massive hand to rub at his forehead. “Where in the deephalls did you find her? Were there others?”

“Mmmm, nope. It was just her, right down below. Getting snacked on by a pack of verisor. Well, just her and her little rock thing.”

The leader orc’s nostril’s flared.

“Rock thing?”

“Yeah it was sort of like a beetle, or maybe aaaaa…squished octopus? But about her size, made of stone and floaty. Shot a purple blast then dropped straight down onto her.” The elf made a bizarre sort of splat sound with his tongue and chuckled.

The orc frowned, looking from the elf to examine Mika, still curled in his arms. His yellow eyes went wide, pointed pupils narrowing.

“She’s wounded, seriously wounded! You shohsa, Threl!” Reaching out, he dashed the elf across the forehead.

“Ack! Why must you?”

“Get her to Bosarg,” ordered the orc. “Now. Krashga, Uvkar. Dive. Bring me that construct.”

Two of the orcs broke away from the main crowd as Threl whipped around on his heel and Mika trilled in surprise.

Should I speak to these creatures? she wondered. Or feign ignorance of the language and see how much I learn?

But before she could decide, the elf had ducked past a tapestry door and into a small cabin lit by a single greasy lantern. Bundles of dried plants hung from the ceilings and ceramic jars lined the netted shelves that cluttered the walls. It smelled heavily of herbs and oils…green and sharp, earthen and fatty.

From a darkened corner, a stream of fragrant smoke issued. A hunched figure spoke from the shadows, and Mika’s eyes adjusted as she peered his way.

“What’s this? Ah, don’t tell me. You’ve picked up another pet.” there was a long inhale, a sigh, a second plume of smoke. The figure leaned forward into the flickering light, pupils going wide as the great gray-skinned beast took her in. Then he sucked the smoke back through his teeth in his shock, baring canines longer than Mika’s fingers, chipped tusks the length of her hand.

“A goblin?”

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Mika cringed at the word, and hissed in pain as her muscles tightened around her wounds.

“Lay her down. Quickly,” ordered the grizzled orc. He reached over and yanked at a latch in the complicated cabin panel beside him. As her eyes followed the motion, Mika saw for the first time that his legs ended just above the knee, and that he was supported instead by a chair built out from the wall and layered in quilts and pelts.

A portion of the panel popped forward and the orc pulled it down. A stretcher, of sorts. The elf laid her upon it as another cry of pain escaped her. Dragging an absurd set of goggles down over his eyes, the larger beast bent in over her and her body tremored, only hurting her all the more. But she couldn’t help it. With that insectoid conglomeration of mismatched lenses hiding his eyes, the orc looked even more terrifying, more inUlvar, than he already was.

“Fragile things,” grumbled the orc, whom she supposed must be Bosarg. “But if she dies, Rhast will have my tusks. Hmph. Verisor bites.”

With another huff and a strange, purring hum, he hefted up his left arm, on which he wore a bracer-like contraption of polished wood. What she’d first taken for ornamental inlays were revealed to be seams as portions of the bracer popped open and an array of instruments splayed out. He purr-hummed again and one of them telescoped outward and across the cabin so quickly the elf yelped and leapt sideways to avoid it, half-falling back through the tapestry before righting himself. When the apparatus shot back, it was with one of the little clay jars clenched between its wooden pincers.

“You can go,” growled the orc around the pipe gripped in his teeth. “Now, even.”

“But…I want to make sure the little pig-bat’s alright,” hedged the elf, taking a step forward and leaning over, his head crowding in beside Bosarg’s as he looked down at her.

“Out!” Barked the orc, catching the pipe in his meaty grip before it could dump its contents all over Mika’s bite wounds.

“Alright, alright!”

With one final, lip-biting glance down at her, the elf made himself scarce.

Popping the cork from the little jar, Bosarg used another of his instruments—this one something like a tiny spoon—to withdraw a greenish paste and apply it to her wounds. His gentle dexterity surprised her, but she supposed it shouldn’t. It was in his best interest that she be well, apparently.

And it was that thought which led her finally to wonder why. What do these creatures want with me? If they meant simply to eat me, surely they wouldn’t take so much care?

Or at least, so she hoped.

Where the ointment was applied, her wounds began to tingle, the stinging pain to ease somewhat. And when Bosarg was done applying the salve, he wrapped her wounds in strips of something dark and silken-soft, pleasantly cool to the touch. Then he drew up his right hand, hovering it just above her freshly bandaged arm, and begun to sing—the words so deep and breathy they flowed together, indecipherable. Beautiful. Terrible.

The pain in her arm vanished completely as the electric tingling in her flesh intensified. It was as though she could actually feel it as her body began to knit itself back together.

Mika shrieked, rolling away from the orc to land, hard, on the floor.

“Fleshsinger!” she cried before she could stop herself, struggling to her feet. “Butcher! Stitcher!”

“No, no, calm your casivaries, girl,” he said. “I’m a Greensinger first and foremost, I know only the most rudimentary forms of fleshwork. Advancing the healing of minor wounds and such. Don’t you think I’d have grown my legs back, otherwise?”

She hissed, her ears folding against the now-tangled mess of her hair.

“Oh don’t give me that guff, little Pigbat. Get back here and let me finish my work.”

“Don’t call me that,” snapped Mika.

Bosarg’s hairless brow rose as his eyes went wide. “Oh? Don’t like it? Why don’t you introduce yourself like a civilized person, then?”

Mika’s lip pulled back in another snarl, but then she caught herself.

“Mikanasha,” she said.

“There’s no need to curse me,” replied the orc. She glared at him.

“It’s my name.”

“Well then, Miss Mikanasha, if you would, please—get your tiny ass back up on the table so I can finish. My. Work.”

Their eyes locked, both of them frowning. Then her leg clenched up with agony, and she grimaced. Attempting a few tentative steps forward, Mika found herself hobbling instead. Snorting, the orc hummed another of his instruments forward, and it plucked her up by the hood to deposit her back upon the stretcher. She lay there, mostly prone, and did her best not to cringe as the healer set back to work over her remaining wounds. But her guts squirmed with disgust at the process, and she spent every moment of it telling herself it would soon be over.

As he was finally purring the last of her wounds to a close, a shadow darkened the space beneath the tapestry doorway and it was flung forward.

“Is she well?” demanded the large orc leader.

“Yes, captain,” replied Bosarg, dipping his head briefly in the giant man’s direction. “Almost done.”

“Good,” said the captain. “The princes approach. I want her on deck before they land.”

The healer grunted, already turning his attention back to Mika.

“You’ve got it, sir.”

Without another word the captain turned and marched off.

“I don’t want to be on deck when your princes arrive,” said Mika once the orc declared himself done. “I want to go.”

“Go? Go where? Back into the forest to feed the beasts, after all my hard work? Or back to the home I suppose you fled for no reason?”

Mika stared at him. He huffed through his nose and shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter either way,” he said. “You’re with us now, and that’s where you’re staying.”