He held out his hand, as if to shake hers. "Swear it." He said.
She winced and took his massive hand. He smelled of old sweat, and grease, and outhouse stench. "I swear it." She said, trying to force a smile.
Tok looked down and said. "Deal, then." He then turned to his right and spit a huge wad of fleghm onto the ground. Sylva tried to copy him, but achieved only marginal success. She was scared and repulsed, and worried.
The ogre looked down at Darvid, and reached toward him. The nobleman squealed again, and cringed back. But Tok simply lifted the horse off of him and hefted it like a large sack of potatoes in both arms. "Me keep horse meat." He said. Then chuckled. "No good to you now, anyway." His chuckle was like the sound of two large stones being ground against each other.
He turned toward the wood. "Go first...wife." He said nodding toward the treeline. She cast another look over her shoulder toward Darvid and he caught her eye, and nodded again, then mouthed 'Two days.' She minutely nodded and then proceeded Tok into the woods.
As they walked Tok said. "You very pretty girl."
She looked back and again forced a smile at him. "Thank you, you're very strong." She said, truthfully.
"Yeah, me strongest ogre in wood." He said proudly. "Me wife die last winter, want new one, now have new one, and she pretty."
She walked onward, with him giving her directions on when to turn and how much. Finally, they came to a cave mouth. "Me house." He said, chuckling. "Best cave in wood." He pointed out.
She proceeded him again, and recoiled at the stench within. He dropped the horse carcass on the ground and uncovered a small fire under a leather hood. He then lit a torch with it and set it into a wall sconce. The cave was maybe thirty feet deep and the same wide, almost round. It was just one large room, with a crude hole bashed into the roof to let light in and smoke out.
She looked at the room, it was furnished mainly with a huge pile of half-cured pelts and some rather tatty-looking blankets. As she looked, the saddle blanket from the riding horse was added to the pile. Most of the smell came from that particular pile. There were several barrels against the far wall, and she would find out later what they contained, if anything. There was also a crudely built table and chairs, quite large.
"Me house." He said, his chest again filling with pride.
She looked around appraisingly, then said. "It's very nice. But needs cleaning."
Tok regarded her. "You wife, clean you job." He chuckled. She shrugged, she had planned on cleaning in her other job, too, at least Tok's house was not quite so large as Darvid's manor.
She began to do just that. She pulled each pelt out of the 'house' and laid it out on the ground outside the cave. She asked Tok if he had a knife.
"What want knife for?" He asked suspiciously.
She said. "To scrape those pelts, you didn't do a very good job of it and they stink mightily."
He nodded slowly, but kept an eye on her after he handed her a small fighting blade. It would serve, though a good skinning knife would have been better.
She set to it, scraping the skins one by one. As the light failed, she had finished almost half of them, and moved them back into the cave. She heaped them in a pile. The reek in the cave was almost halved now. She could at least breath deeply without being on the verge of throwing up.
Tok stood from his chair, and took the knife, placing it on a high shelf, far from her reach. He turned back to her. "We fuck now." He said, reaching for his loincloth.
She panicked and said the only thing that came to mind. "WE WHAT!!!" She screamed, as if she were deeply offended. Her face reddened with rage.
The ogre stepped back, looking confused and afraid for a moment. "Me want fuck wife." He said.
She railed on him. "A good husband does NOT FUCK his wife, he MAKES LOVE to her!" She hollered at the top of her lungs. Tok gave back again. "You will NOT FUCK me this night, as you are obviously a very BAD HUSBAND!" The nine foot tall, six hundred pound humanoid was backed to the wall, by the five-foot eight, hundred and forty pound girl. "You will apologize to me and you will go to bed and I will sleep over here, by the table."
Tok stood for a long moment, his face a total blank. Then shuffled to his pile of furs and blankets, then laid down, looking at her. She huffed at him with totally manufactured hostility and went over near him and dragged one blanket, the horse blanket from today out of the pile. She laid it under the table, she then covered the little fire and went to her bed.
---
In the morning Tok was up and awake before her, he was sitting at the cave entrance, scraping the skins that were still outside the cave with the fighting knife. He was not doing a half bad job of it.
As she approached him, he looked over at her. Sitting, he was almost the same height. He held up the newly scraped skin, smiling broadly with his crooked teeth. "Me fix skins, want you lie in bed tonight, so me make it not stink." She looked on as he continued. She followed behind him with a second knife after he fetched it down for her, and finished each skin to her satisfaction. Between them, the skins were done in a couple of hours. She then stood and massaged the small of her back.
She walked to the back of the cave. The barrels, she found, were full of brandy. She figured they might be useful, it was potent enough to be flammable. She might be able to burn this brute out and escape. The idea of trying terrified her though. He was so damn powerful, he might kill her with a single swat. She had thought of trying to slip off last night, but whenever she moved, he seemed to come awake. His senses were fantastic, she decided, or he slept incredibly lightly. She had little doubt that those five foot legs could outrun her handily, as well. So, she bided her time. Darvid had said 'two days.' So she would hold out until tomorrow, or the next morning.
In the meantime, she meant to make the best of her 'home.' She had Tok carry all the blankets to the nearest water, and he guided her to a stream. "Why wash blanket?" He asked her.
"Because," She said patiently. "Good husbands don't let their wives sleep in filthy blankets and skins." She showed him her arm. "We are delicate, and if we get too much dirt on us, it hurts."
Tok nodded, and sat on the shore with her and they pounded and wrung the blankets all out, they were fairly clean when they were done. She stretched, it was a little after noon. He helped her hang the blankets on tree branches to dry and they went back to the cave. She had him beat out the skins against the wall of the cliff next to the cave mouth, and he did so, whistling as he did it. The cave now smelled pretty decently. She crafted herself a twig broom, and swept out the detritus from the cave.
"Me no want dig hole." He complained. "Why want?"
"We need a place for trash, and to go to the toilet." She said, looking at him. "A good husband does not pee on the wall of the cave, there will be no more of that." She said, shaking a finger at him. "And I found turds on the floor. No more of that either."
He flinched when she said 'turds,' and silently went to work with a old shovel head, digging a hole.
She swept the pile of stuff into the hole and then said. "Now you poop and pee in this hole, you hear?"
"Me hear." He said, sullenly. The sky was growing dark, and she knew what would be coming next.
After they ate a horse-meat stew she cooked and he butchered the remaining horse meat. She washed out the bowls in a small tub. He watched her with interest. "You clean bowl too?" He said. "You very clean." He smiled. "Me like."
She finished and turned to face him. "I'm glad you like it." She said.
He stood up and pointed at their newly cleaned and dusted bed. "We go f...make love now?" He asked. His face hopeful.
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