The Courtship of Glasha and Ailuin | Chapter One
Glasha of the Jagged Fang is an orc warrior who finds herself enthralled by the intrigue of an elven court; in addition, she might find allyship with Ailuin, the queen’s steward of the arts.
— — —
The Garden was a vast and dark jungle of kudzu vines. Vines that would eventually consume the entire Backyard if left unchecked. That was part of Glasha’s job. The Queen of the Elves hired her and a goblin named Eddy to deal with the vines in their true quest: They were to slay the Garden’s Spider-Queen. Seemed simple enough, right? Well, that would imply that our intrepid mercenaries knew where she rested her head at night. It was a day’s trek to get a few feet into the bush, and they still hadn’t seen any hint of the Spider-Queen: no webs, no grim servants, nothing like that. Not even any insects, really. They’d expected to be menaced by snails, but The Garden had none.
By the time the sun dipped over the all-too-distant horizon, Glasha and Eddy had set up camp, a fire of rotten wood that stank to the tiered heavens.
“So,” said Eddy, resting his musket across his lap. “What are you going to do with your winnings when we destroy her?”
“Winnings is quite the euphemism,” said Glasha. “Don’t kid yourself; it’s blood money. We’re being paid to do a murder.”
“Okay…fuck. I guess what are you going to do with your share of the blood money, Miss Grim?” asked Eddy.
“I intend to leave this life behind, kid,” said Glasha.
“Come off it, a big, strong gal like you? You’ve got a decade of fighting left in you at least,” said Eddy. “Me? I’m getting Kojaque here refitted and modified like a beach six-shooter.”
The goblin gestured to his musket, running his hands along the length of the barrel and terminating where it bent near the receiver.
“A fine dream,” said Glasha.
“Dreams that will wilt and die on the vine,” said a woman’s voice from the darkness.
Glasha was on her feet in an instant, with Eddy following after her, axe in hand and musket readied for combat. Eddy was a professional, even for all his bluster. Glasha half expected him to start aiming around wildly, but he calmly packed a round into the gun and readied it for a fight. Musket rifles aren’t quick enough for what happened next. Our man was only able to get off a single shot before a mess of legs ensnared him and hoisted him up into the towering plant life. Glasha made a swipe with her axe, but she fell short. Eddy was gone, too wrapped in webs to make a scream.
“Insidious bitch!” shouted Glasha.
“That’s quite the loaded term for what I am, little orc,” said the Spider-Queen from her distant height. “According to Erisil, I might not even count as a woman at all. How could I? I haven’t been an elf woman in some time.”
“That’s irrelevant,” said Glasha. “Come down and face me, coward, or send me your champion so that I might fashion gloves from its skin!”
The Spider-Queen landed hard; dirt splashed up. Powder puddles. She was enormous, her lower body a chittering black carapace with eight huge legs which spread out on all sides, while her upper body was the bare torso of an elven woman, grey, mottled skin that brought to Glasha’s mind a corpse she’d seen once.
The Spider-Queen rushed Glasha, her multitude of legs chattering and chittering. Would our warrior look certain death in the face and turn coward? Fuck no! She raised her axe above her head and rushed the big venomous horror-show and slashed at her body as she slid beneath. Her blade tore a canyon, spilling oil-slick blood on the dirt. A noise erupted from this crownless arachnid monarch, something halfway between an insect chirp and human scream.
The Spider-Queen struggled to turn around and face her. By then, Glasha was full of battlelust and wanted to achieve that ultimate and bloody conclusion that all warriors long for. The Spider-Queen was by no means immune to it either. She slammed one of her legs down and kicked up a mound of dirt, knocking Glasha back, but there was only so much energy left to expend. She was dying; she knew that.
Glasha would follow her trail of blood, finding her collapsed beneath a mint plant. Without any more words exchanged, Glasha cut the queen’s throat. After all, Queen Ersil of the elves wanted proof. What better proof than her rival monarch’s face?
It took most of the night and part of the day for Glasha to make it back to her handler’s camp. At least, that’s how she viewed the two elven men who sat by a campfire drinking thistle tea. They were dressed in the silvery glass armor that was popular with elves in their hermit kingdom on the western side of the Backyard.
Get Watcher's Lust’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
“Is it complete, orc?” asked the one she knew as Captain Clisus, though there was no indication that the man was ever aware of her name. Or cared to know it.
Glasha took from her leather bag the elf queen’s trophy, unrolling it like a length of parchment.
“Oh my, that’s dreadful,” said an elf she didn’t know the name of, who started to retch.
“And your goblin companion?” asked Clisus.
“Dead,” said Glasha. “She made sure of that.”
“Damn,” muttered Clisus. “I was really rooting for him. Cannot be helped, I suppose.”
They journeyed back to the palace of the elf queen. Her palace was built into the side of The Empty House’s stone back porch. A great series of tunnels that all terminated at her practically subterranean home. Most of her kingdom was outside, in the sun, bordering on the koi pond. No one else, save for her inner circle, dwelled underground as she did. Glasha felt that chill overcome her as she walked down the dark path, escorted by the elves. She was all too familiar with their night eyes, black as ink, and capable of seeing in the deepest darkness.
Their path suddenly became illuminated, no doubt for her benefit. The queen was what Glasha privately thought of as an “ancient old bitch of the highest order”. She was remarkably old, supposedly old enough to have been alive when the entire world’s population shrank in an instant. To have lived through that as an elf meant you had to be a hard bitch, most elves from that generation couldn’t adjust well to the new circumstances and expired. Her court was all young, but to Glasha that could have meant anything. She once heard that two of them, twins, were 48, but they looked a human might in their late early twenties.
One of them, she could feel his eyes on her. He was one of the twins. She couldn’t tell from looking at him where his eyes were in the room, but while the others were looking up, she could feel his obsidian peepers on her.
“Fortune has favored you, Glasha of the Jagged Fang,” said Queen Erisil, seated in the center of her room, her glass throne crescented by her court of young elves. “You will find your fortune favors you as well. Ailuin, present her with her reward.”
The one who was looking at her broke from the crescent and approached her, his long robes blowing as he cut towards her, his hands fiddling around his person for something. Soon, a long-fingered hand emerged from some inner pocket and produced a sizable sack of coin, hers and Eddy’s shares combined, no doubt.
“We would like to extend to you the invitation of retainer,” said Queen Erisil.
When she felt the weight of the coin sack in her hand, she knew it wasn’t enough. Being on retainer wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
“I accept,” said Glasha, barely giving the notion another thought.
“Splendid,” said Queen Erisil. “Ailuin, show our honored guest to her bedchambers. Tomorrow, I would like a minor celebration for her. Something that will mark yesterday as the day our greatest enemy met her violent end!”
Ailuin nodded and proceeded to walk forward, evidently expecting Glasha to trail after him like a baby duck. Glasha did follow him, though not as immediately as he might have liked. He led her down twisting hallways without a word from his lips. Their path terminated outside of a bedroom with a door that looked as though it had been repurposed from one of the many metal containers that littered The Empty House.
Ailuin’s words came suddenly; he had a calm, level voice that was devoid of emotion, like most elves in the homogeneous kingdom, as Glasha had noticed. “This will be your room for your tenure here.”
Free from any further tasks, Ailuin made to leave, starting down the darkened hallway away from Glasha.
“Well,” said Glasha. “It’s been real. Goodnight.”
The elf froze and turned back to face her, walking back towards her. The scrawny little man had to look up at Glasha when he addressed her. “Do not mistake her manners for genuine kindness.”
“What?” asked Glasha. “Is this some kind of a threat?”
“It is a spot of friendly advice, Lady Glasha of the Jagged Fang,” said Ailuin. “You would do well to remember and heed it. Do not let your guard down.”
With that, Ailuin vanished into the hallway's darkness, leaving Glasha alone with her bedchamber door and a handful of questions she didn’t think he could answer. Elves were very cryptic like that, she found. Even outside of the Elven Kingdom, she had thought most of them unwilling to speak like ordinary people, with their smug sense of superiority. Still, a warning is a warning, and anyone in Erisil’s court would know about her.
