moonshadows

Se’jib watched silently from the steps of his hut as the raptor approached. The years had taught South River Pack that although not a predator, the lone troll in his raised hut was not prey. Once the raptor got close enough for Se’jib to make out details through the gloom, he could see that it was a female with something held in her claws. Something that wriggled slightly.

The raptor barked out a series of growling, whining sounds, arms thrust out for him to take the orcish baby they held. The spirits whispered meaning onto his ear: Dark, mother claim hatchling.

Se’jib smiled around his tusks as he took the child. “I’ll make sure she understands,” he assured the hulking creature, the spirits translating for him. Packleader discipline mother.

The female raptor snorted once in appeased disdain and ran back off into the dusk.

“Your mother tried to kill you,” he purred to the child in his arms. “Brought you to a nest of raptors, left you to die. But raptors are not simple beasts; you have been accepted, and now she will have to keep her end of the bargain.” One thin finger caressed the baby’s forehead and cheeks until she opened her eyes. “Blue? That’s not what they were before.” Chuckling, he ambled into the jungle towards the nearby village. “You belong to Gonk, young one. He put his mark on you. Blue eyes…” His lips split into a wide grin. “Red raptors are rare around these parts. You’ve got quite a path ahead of you.”

The baby gurgled.

Kalika Ironheart accepted her child with a stoic expression, ignoring the unnerving way the old troll was grinning.

“You be givin’ her, an’ he be givin’ her back – wit’ his mark. You made a promise.”

“I did,” she ground out, “and I will honor it. What comes next?”

“She be needin’ a name. Da raptors, dey be willin’ to watch an’ feed her durin’ da day, but you be needin’ to pick her up at night.” His eyes narrowed in amusement. “A side o’ meat every ot’er day not gonna hurt matters.”

“Paying them for their time? Fine.” The orc woman stared stonily at the child she’d tended for the last year, unnamed according to orcish custom. Today was to have been the day when she would be given a name – assuming the raptors didn’t eat her, which they hadn’t. After a moment, her mouth twisted into a toothy grin. “Rhksll,” she choked. “The sound your father made with my dagger in his throat. The last sound he made. That’s what he said he’d name you, so that’s the name you’ll carry.”

“I be lettin’ da elders know,” the old troll purred, ambling off into the night.

“Rrr, kssss, lll,” the child enunciated insistently, pointing with her stick to each of the three runes scratched into the bare earth. “That’s my name. Ryxl. It’s the sound my father made with my mother’s dagger in his throat.” Grinning, she made a strangled sound and clawed at her neck. “See? Rhksll!”

The raptor hatchlings lined up in front of her cooed their appreciation for her performance.

Identity! The orc child barked, grinning.

Rhksll, rhksll, rhksll! The hatchlings chorused.

Hatchlings come, barked the young adult watching them. Follow.

Obediently, Ryxl and her companions fell into line behind their babysitter as he led the way back to South River Pack’s nest site. Suddenly, he barked out, Danger! Well-trained, they dove beneath the nearest bush and huddled together, very still and quiet, while the young adult dashed off shouting for hunters to aid the hatchlings. A few moments later, trollish footsteps sounded faintly, and unfamiliar feet landed on the jungle floor. Ryxl drew her mother’s dagger slowly, pushing the other hatchlings behind her. The feet went one way, then the other, following their trail…and came to a stop by the bush that hid orc-child and raptor-children. One knee. A hand reaching out. And then, an unfamiliar face grinning at his luck in being able to snatch a raptor hatchling without tangling with the pack.

Ryxl lashed out, the blade of her dagger buried in the troll’s throat. He choked, lifeblood spilling from the wound. As one, Ryxl and the hatchlings rushed forward to drink the treat before it was lost to the thirsty soil, but she snarled and they fell back obediently. She only got a few licks before the hunting-pack ran up.

Report! The alpha hunter barked.

Ryxl stood up and pointed proudly at the troll’s ravaged throat, her mouth red with his blood. Rhksll, she explained, miming the stab.

Rhksll, the alpha hunter repeated slowly. She nuzzled the wound, miming biting it. Rhksll. Throat-bite-kill.

The hatchlings cheered as meaning suddenly attached to the sound. Rhksll! Bites-throats! Bites-throats!

Bites-throats grinned broadly, dagger held proudly aloft. BITES-THROATS!

“Mama, mama, I have a name!”

Kalika glanced impatiently at her daughter. “I know you have a name.”

“My name is Bites-throats.”

“Your name is Ryxl.”

“That’s what I said! But in raptor-speak, it means bites throats.”

The orc woman rolled her eyes. “And why does it mean that?”

“Because that’s what I did! A bad troll was trying to steal the hatchlings, but I stuck your dagger in his throat and he said my name and died and I drank the blood and now the whole pack knows that my name is Bites Throats!”

Kalika Ironheart stopped dead to stare at her daughter. “A troll was trying to steal the hatchlings, and you killed him?”

Ryxl nodded. Her mother wasn’t sure if what she felt was pride, horror, or both.