Brakk Furyborn had been in love with Jasmine Irontusk from the moment he laid eyes on her. She was a large woman, even by orc standards. Most orc women were roughly the same height as their male counterparts. Jasmine stood literally head and shoulders above them all. The first time he’d seen her was about half a century ago, during the clan wars. The Council was still being formed and every orc clan felt they had a claim to the Primal’s chair. Tensions naturally built up, skirmishes broke out, alliances were formed, and before you knew it the whole ordeal had turned into a full blown war between clans. Furyborn and Irontusk were on opposing sides of the battle – the Furyborn and their allies had backed the Stoneclaws’ claim to the chair, while Jasmine’s alliance had backed the eventual winner of the seat, the current Primal Corzyk Firebane.
Their two clans had come into direct combat in the coastal region known as the Bay of Sorrows. Jasmine was like a whirlwind of destruction that day. She may have been responsible for more Furyborn deaths than the entirety of the rest of her alliance. By the time Brakk had reached the front lines, she’d dismantled an entire regiment and ended an entire clan’s lineage. The carnage that lay at her feet and the blood that clung to her only served as a contrasting backdrop to her beauty. She was like a rose, cradled in the arms of the Reaper himself. Brakk was smitten, immediately. He had to fight her.
Their battle, however, was short lived and ended with Brakk being pulled from the battlefield, barely clinging to life, by his clansmen. On the healer’s table he replayed their battle in his mind over and over. He recounted every detail of her beautiful brutality to the shamans as they knitted the pieces of him back together. They didn’t understand, but he didn’t really expect them to in the first place. He just needed to say the thoughts out loud before they consumed his sanity. She was a reaver in every sense – if she didn’t kill you on the field of battle, then the memory of her would eat at your mind until you were a drooling invalid incapable of thinking about anything but her.
Jasmine’s alliance won that battle decisively. The Furyborn and their allies retreated in grim defeat. All except for Brakk. He had other plans. He dressed himself in the trappings and weapons from one of the Irontusk fallen and followed them back to their camp. He ate with them, sang songs of victory with them. He drank their mead and listened to them tell their battlefield tales. All the while, he inched ever closer to Jasmine’s position. His plan was playing out to perfection…until he saw her kiss another male on the cheek. He wanted to ask someone who that male had been, but anyone in camp would already know the answer to that question. Just the act of asking would reveal him as an intruder. And so, he inched closer still, until he could listen in on their conversation.
“One hundred and fifty? That’s all?” Jasmine asked of the male she’d kissed. “I killed that many with my opening attack, dear.”
“Well, you’re you, though. That doesn’t count. You have to compare me to the other males,” he paused, “But not Varg, either. He’s psychotic and just throws himself at enemies like he’s leaping into a pond for a morning swim.”
“He’s a barbarian, love. That’s kind of his whole thing.”
“Yes, well, I still don’t think he should count.”
“Don’t worry, my husband. Your kill count is adequate, if we consider your limitations.”
“My…hey, be nice.”
Jasmine’s laugh was like the tinkling of crystals falling down a well. He could have gotten lost in that sound, but a single word crashed through it as though someone had hurled a brick through a stained-glass window. Husband. She was already wed, and the mate appeared to be a complete imbecile. The rage built in his chest, the heat quickly rising and getting trapped in his face. His cheeks burned with rage. His muscles tensed so hard his tendons creaked. Someone nearby noticed, and he attempted to placate them with a story about how he was just remembering something that happened on the battlefield. How his brother, Alrx was slain and the enemy had disrespected his corpse. It was thin, but it was the best he could come up with on the spot in the heat of his anger. Luckily, it was enough to convince them and they all had a toast to his fallen, fallacious brother.
“To Alrx!” one of them yelled, holding up his tankard.
“To Alrx!” came the reply, carried by every voice in camp.
Brakk excused himself and left the festivities, ostensibly to get some air and be alone for a while. In truth, he was leaving the camp and the pieces of his shattered heart behind. He decided then and there to forget about Jasmine and about the very idea of love itself. But something occurred to him then that he hadn’t had the time nor the wherewithal to process in the moment – the person who had asked him why he was so angry, the person who had raised a toast to his fictional brother…was Jasmine. A small sliver of that adoration returned to him with that realization, and he hated himself for it.
Some years later, Brakk caught wind of rumors that Jasmine had birthed offspring. A son who had been named for his father. The thought of that idiot’s genes being passed down was an affront to everything he stood for. Moreover, the moron had sullied Jasmine’s superior genetics by injecting his own and degrading an offspring that could and should have been the greatest warrior of the current era. If only she’d chosen Brakk. Their spawn would have been glorious. Then, word came that the defect of a husband had removed himself from the equation by managing to get himself killed on a hunt. The daft bastard had evidently stumbled upon a Tarantulus cave and thought to make himself a lute from threads of the beast’s silk.
Brakk’s opening had finally come. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just rush in and claim her for his own. He was being bounced around from outpost to outpost, helping to rebuild and refortify them in the wake of the war. But there was no rush. She would be too deep in mourning for the foreseeable future to be open to courtship, anyway. No, he’d bide his time, build his strength, and then present himself to her when the time was right.
Now, more than two decades later, he would get his chance. Jasmine was in the main orc stronghold called Slagfall, attending a Council meeting. He was already in a neighboring outpost, so the timing was perfect. He would just take a day’s ride west to the town and stop by to say hello. She had plenty of time to get over the loss of a mate, by then, surely. Plus, he’d obtained a courtship gift that was nigh irresistible. What reason could she possibly have to refuse him?
That was the exact question he asked himself as he entered the Council Room, letting the doors slam loudly behind him. He glanced around the room and noted with satisfaction that all eyes were on him. It took mere moments for him to spot Jasmine sitting on the dais as part of the Council. Wasting no time, he strode to the front of the room. The clanking and creaking of his plate armor and the sound of armored feet walking across tiled floors penetrated the silence that had otherwise gripped the room. He took their silence for obeisance and mentally approved of their deference to him. They should be silent in the presence of such a great warrior. As he approached the Council’s dais and stood in front of Jasmine, he bowed slightly.
“I hope that the Council will forgive my intrusion, however, I have a matter of some urgency to discuss with the Matriarch of the Irontusk Clan.”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. The Council member next to her frowned.
“This is highly irregular,” the councilman said brusquely.
“I understand that, so I will be short so that you may return to your important work. Matriarch Jasmine,” he said, turning his eyes upward to meet hers. “I have ridden many miles and waited for many sleepless nights in anticipation of bringing you this offering of courtship.”
Jasmine’s eyes went wide, and she looked at the council members to either side of her. They were all as dumbfounded as she was. Apparently, this was not something they had approved or had any knowledge of…so where had this little orc come from?
“You say you have been waiting to deliver this offer to me. That implies we have met before. You’ll have to forgive my lapse in memory, but I do not recognize you.”
Brakk recoiled inwardly at that. He had thought of little else for nigh on fifty years, and she didn’t even recognize the sight of him. The idea of it was preposterous. That familiar heat began to build in his cheeks, and he had to calm himself. They had lived very different lives for the past decades. Of course she would need to be reminded of who he was. She’d been living under the veil of mediocrity in her previous marriage. It was time he opened her eyes.
“We met during the battle at the Bay of Sorrows. We fought on opposing sides. I even had the pleasure of crossing blades with you, though it pains me to say that I did not represent myself very well in that particular fight. Since then, however, I have grown in strength and to prove it, I have brought you a gift.”
Brakk pulled out the courtship gift he’d kept stored in his inventory for nearly twenty years. It landed with a loud wet THUMP on the Council Room floor. Jasmine looked at it with a frown. It was the head of some sort of woolen beast with massive tusks protruding from either side of its elongated snout. The smell of rotten meat filled the room. Jasmine crinkled her nose at the putrescine wafting up from the creature’s flesh.
“Is this a joke?” she said, looking around accusatorily at her fellow council members. They all just either stared at her blankly, shrugged, or shook their heads. She looked back at Brakk, who was looking like a lovestruck puppy who had just been reprimanded for piddling on the floor. Jasmine rose to her feet.
“Whoever you are, I have no memory of you, nor do I have the inclination to be courted in front of my peers. Take this foul-smelling ‘gift’ and leave. Your presence annoys me.”
Brakk frowned. He’d just laid the head of a Level 110 Mammolich at her feet, and rather than recognize the strength it took to single-handedly defeat such a creature, she complained of the aroma. A warrior of her stature surely must recognize the feat he’d accomplished in procuring such a trophy. Still…if it offended her, best to stow it away back in his storage and attempt a different tack.
“I apologize if the gift offends, Matriarch Jasmine. I just thought –”
“You just thought,” she interrupted, “that you could waltz in here, interrupt Council business, throw carrion at my feet and I’d…what? Have you take me right here on the table in front of everyone in a fit of passion? Make you the new head of my clan? You’re just like every other idiot with more muscle than brain who’s tried to court me since my husband died.”
She looked around the room appearing to deliberate over something for a moment before her eyes went stony, her decision having been made.
“In fact, it has become so commonplace and so infuriating that I believe I will put an end to it right now. This is my formal declaration to the Council – I, Jasmine Irontusk, have taken on a suitor in the past weeks and we have consummated our union in recent days.”
A susurrus filled the room. Several members offered their congratulations, while another asked for the lucky orc’s identity. Even as he seethed, Brakk paid close attention to how she’d answer that last question.
“You won’t know him. He is not an orc. He is human.”
The murmurs grew into something closer to a low din as the Council and everyone present learned that the most powerful orc in the city had married outside the orc race. Everything turned deathly quiet, however, as a powerful bloodlust filled the room. Many of the audience members vomited and several of the Council leapt from their seats to back away from the aura of Brakk Furyborn. He slammed a fist into the council’s table and shattered it. Jasmine stood unperturbed and defiant as Brakk stepped up to her.
“A human??” he bellowed. “You have defiled yourself and dishonored your clan!”
“I have done no such thing,” she said, coldly. “I have, for the first time in ages, made a priority of my own happiness. What angers you isn’t who I’ve married, but that you believe he has foiled your attempt to possess me. Well, let me cure you of that particular delusion. In no world would I ever submit to you. In no universe would I ever allow you to own me. You are a disgusting waste of flesh, and if I never see you after this day I will consider it a blessing from the gods.”
She released her own aura, and Brakk immediately backed away from her. Not by choice, but because the sheer force of it pushed him backward and threatened to consume his own aura. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of that. So, he turned his back to her and stormed toward the Council Room doors. As he put his hand on the handles to pull apart the double doors to make his exit, he paused and looked back at her. Her aura still shone as she stood there behind the shattered remains of the Council tables, but she had pulled it back some out of respect for her colleagues.
“I will not allow this indignity to stand. I will not allow this defilement of orc lineage to continue. I swear before the Council and before the gods,” he took out a short, jagged knife and sliced his own palm, dripping blood onto the tiled floors, “on my blood and on my honor, I will kill this human and restore the honor of Slagfall. This is my oath.”
Then, he stepped through the doors and left the room to sit in the silence of its own ineptitude.