“What…?” was all I got out before my stomach lurched. The mountain suddenly fell away as we flew off a cliff into open air.
For a split second we actually appeared to be flying, majestic and free. Then the actual fall began and majesty was replaced with mind-bending terror. I’m not too ashamed to admit that I screamed as the snows passed dozens of feet below us. My scream was echoed by the others as we plummeted toward the ground at breakneck speed. White powder was flashing toward me too fast to comprehend when Shieldwall gave a sudden twist. We flew apart a heartbeat before we slammed into the snow.
The world went dark at impact, and I was sure I was dead. After a few moments I realized I was breathing. With that realization came a flood of others. A cold sensation on my skin, a slight glow in front of my face, and a wrenching pain in my back. It felt like an eternity before I realized I wasn’t dead at all. Just slightly buried under snow.
I sat up and gave a terrific gasp as the snow fell away from my face. I’d only been a few inches under the soft white powder. Around me, the rest of my group were pulling themselves from the deep snows, shaking off the terror of the fall. I glanced up at the seventy foot high cliff we’d sailed from.
“I can’t believe we survived that,” I grumbled as I fought the pain in my back to haul myself to my feet. To my left, Shieldwall lay still and face down in the snow. Only a few feet away, I could see her helmeted head resting on the edge of her shield. Stumbling, I made my way to the dwarf and tried to roll her over.
I felt like I was trying to push over the damned mountain. I had to set my feet and wrench with all my might, back screaming in pain at the effort. Finally the woman was on her back. With Shieldwall’s visor up, I could see a trickle of blood flowing from her temple.
“How is she?” asked an Invincible as he lumbered over.
“Out,” I said. “We’ll have to carry her.” I looked around at the others of the group. Several seemed injured, a few badly. As if on cue, horns sounded in the distance.
“We’re out of options,” Tallus said, limping over. Then he looked to the forest still a quarter mile away. “Even if we can make that forest, we’ll never be able to outrun them now.” He dropped onto his ass in the snow next to me, rubbing his left ankle. I raised an eyebrow at the elf and he shrugged. “Twisted,” he said.
“What were those things we escaped from?” I asked.
“Orcs,” Tallus said.
“Those are orcs?” I gasped, my eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “Like the ones back at the cave?”
“That was a hunting party,” Tallus said. “We just escaped a war party. Better armed, armored, and looking for us.”
“I know I’m new at all this, but I thought we were supposed to be negotiating with them.”
“That might be a little difficult now,” he said, his usual grin only a shallow smile. “But if you’re feeling particularly brave…”
“They were always likely to try to kill us,” Lanisa interrupted as she walked up to the group with Kiinna behind her.
“Only three Rangers and five Invincibles are able to fight,” she said. “We were lucky enough to dodge fatalities, but when those orcs catch us…” she stopped her head suddenly snapping around to look at the forest. Each of the other elves did the same.
“What is it?” I asked in a whisper.
“Movement,” Tallus said equally quietly. “In the woods. I can’t see them, but I can hear them. A lot of them.”
We were all watching the forest when a host of orcs burst out, charging toward us with their black matte swords waving. Plated armor the color of night contrasted with the pure white snow as the howling mass closed the distance at an impressive rate.
“Circle the wounded!” Lanisa shouted.
We gathered the wounded against the cliff face, and formed a tight wall of bodies before them. The dwarf with me carried Sheildwall there like she was nothing while I pulled along her shield. I leaned it against my knee as we waited for the orcs to come, pulling my sword with one hand and pistol with the other. I rested its butt against the top of the shield, sighting in on the oncoming tide of black-clad orcs. One bullet won’t do much good against that many, but I’d be damned if I don’t send at least one of those fuckers to hell with us.
The elves fired their bows as soon as the creatures were in range. A handful of arrows fell into the enemy throng and only two orcs fell. Most of the arrows deflected off blackened orcish armor. Dozens of arrows were fired back from the charging orcs.
I’d had a plan for the return fire. I was going to lift the scutum style shield and use it to protect our immobile wounded from enemy arrows. But just pulling it to the wounded made my back scream in protest. It was far too heavy for me to use. Luckily, the enemy volley was low and the few that made it to us impacted the bottom of the shield.
As the enemy grew closer they stopped using their bows, lusting after an eye to eye engagement. Our elves, on the other hand, had no such interest and their arrows grew more deadly with every inch the enemy closed. Soon every time an elf launched an arrow, an orc sprouted a shaft and fell hard to the snow. Arrows flew past us over and over; orc after orc fell dead. They were getting close enough we could see their eyes through the slits in their helmets.
Then, when they were only twenty feet away, a booming guttural voice from behind the orcs stopped them in their tracks. They encircled us, twenty feet out and stamping in anticipation. Maces, swords, and axes waved as the beasts snarled in anticipation. They leered at us as they waited for some unknown command.
For almost a minute, there was a standoff. Those of us forming a wall held our weapons at the ready, waiting for imminent death. Three elves injured badly enough that they couldn’t stand at the perimeter, sat in the center of us with their bows aimed into the masses of the enemy. The orcs, likewise, shuffled in anticipation. The burning lust for our deaths shone in their eyes as they waited to charge.
“I wish your girlfriend was here,” Tallus said out of the corner of his mouth to me.
“Girlfriend?” I hissed back at him, catching an eyeful of a particularly massive orc who was eying me like a prime rib. I shifted my aim to him.
“Gallinea. She seems to be able to pull our asses out of the fire when it counts.”
“Girlfriend my ass,” I growled. “I’ll give it up to this orc in front of me before I give it up to her,” I growled.
“Strangely prophetic,” he said.
Before Tallus could elaborate, the orcish lines parted. An ornately armored orc strolled unworriedly to stand before us. It removed its helmet to reveal dark gray skin and a halo of long hair circling a balding pate. It seemed to smile and snarl at the same time, especially when looking over the women. The creature said something in its guttural, almost growling language, but none of us responded. After a few seconds, it let its helmet drop into the snow and reached behind it. Its left hand came forward with a long rope which it held out to us. Then it pulled the rope back and pointed its weapon at us.
The message was clear: prisoner or death.
“Do we fight?” I whispered.
“If we fight, we die,” Lanisa said. “If we surrender we might escape to fight again.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Winters seemed pretty adamant about not being taken alive.”
“If I could survive Salazar, I can survive them,” Lanisa said as she threw down her sword. “Eventually they’ll slip up and I’ll make them pay.”
The rest of us glanced around at each other but, after I dropped my weapons, the other followed suit. The orcish officer smiled as he grunted out a command. More than a dozen of the stinking beasts advanced forward with long leather thongs.
The Challenge
Leashed together by the neck like animals, we were marched through the snows of the forbidding mountains. Fortunately, Shieldwall came to as we were being restrained since our two most injured, the Ranger I’d tripped over before our sledding escape and a second Ranger who never spoke other th
an when necessary, were left behind by our captors to die in the harsh mountains.
It was a hard march, the pace set by creatures who’d evolved to survive in the cold and oxygen deprived environment of high mountain peaks. Several times one of our team fell, exhausted from our string of ordeals, and had to be carried by the rest of us. The orcs didn’t stop, didn’t feed us, didn’t hydrate us. They marched us up the unforgiving terrain at an unforgiving pace following a river that spilled down an unforgiving incline.
I was so drained from our trials that I passed out near the edge of the unfrozen river. One second I was looking at the flowing river, and the ice that built up along the snows of its bank, the next the world was spinning. As the world swam back into view God knows when later, I hauled myself into a seated position with a groan.
“I was starting to think you’d sleep through all the fun,” came a familiar voice. I looked over at Tallus who was sitting against a small boulder. He gave me his customary grin as he worked his way to his feet. His injured ankle gave him a pronounced limp.
The room we were in was about 100 feet by 100 feet, lit and warmed by two fires. The rest of our group was here as well, gathered around the two fires. The walls of our prison weren’t stone or wood as I had expected, but pure ice. Looking around, it looked like the room had been melted out of a giant glacier. Even the narrow chimney that carried out the smoke of our fires and in fresh air were perfectly round and smooth as though it had been melted into existence. There was no door that I could see, it was one long and perfectly symmetrical wall of blue-black ice.
“What kind of fun can I expect?” I asked as Tallus dropped down clumsily next to me.
“If you’re lucky, they’ll just eat you,” he said. “Which brings us to the most important question before us at the moment.” I leaned in close waiting on that most critical of information. “What kind of flavoring do you want to be cooked with? I’m leaning toward basil.”
I snickered in spite of myself. “I’m not sure I have a preference,” I said.
“Well, you might want to think about it,” he said as he glanced toward the two ladies who were approaching. “You don’t want to be cooked in something unflattering.”
“Is being cooked something you two are worried about as well?” I asked as Lanisa and Shieldwall sat down next to us.
“Actually, being cooked would be a nice outcome for us,” Lanisa growled. I raised a questioning eyebrow and Shieldwall clarified.
“Mountains tend to have a real problem with half-orcs,” the dwarf ambassador said. “We kill them when we find them, but the orcs never seem to run out.” I shook my head in disgust as comprehension roiled the contents of my stomach. “They’ll keep us alive as long as we continue to produce their offspring,” Shieldwall said. “If we’re lucky we’ll die early.”
“You knew all this, and we still surrendered?” I asked, my mouth hanging open in shock. There was a dull ache deep in my chest at the thought of what would happen to the women because I agreed to surrender. “Why didn’t we just fight to the death?”
“We agreed to follow you in the beginning,” Shieldwall said quietly poking the fire with a stick from the edge of the fire. Her eyes were on the flame as she spoke. “You’ve already succeeded twice where anyone else would have failed. We have faith you can do so again.”
I felt as though the world fell out from under me. My ‘success’ with Vale was mostly dumb luck, and it was Tallus who’d convinced Winters. In my opinion, I’d done relatively little on the actual quest.
“Have we considered how we might get out of here?” I asked.
“They took our armor, weapons, and supplies,” Lanisa said. “I don’t think we’re getting out of here without them opening the door.”
We went quiet, considering our options. I fought constant waves of nausea as I tried to come to terms with my culpability in this mess. If the elf king had told me what to expect, I would have insisted the party be all male. Or even insisted that the women stay behind at Winter’s sanctum. Not that Lanisa or Kiinna would have listened. At least I was able to take some solace in the thought that Kinsey wasn’t here.
Almost an hour later, there was a shout of warning from one of the Rangers. Her eyes were on one of the walls as the ice melted away. Four orcs strolled imperiously inside. They could have passed for human from the neck down if not for their slate-gray skin, but their scrunched up faces, too large mouths, and needle-sharp teeth made my skin crawl.
One was unremarkable in every possible way in its simple bland clothes. The second was the same orc officer who’d taken us prisoner outside the valley forest, still in his black armor. Third was a stooped orc in a loin cloth, carrying an obviously ceremonial staff. But the fourth orc held everybody’s eye.
It wasn’t a particularly tall orc like the officer was, but it was very fat. He led the others in rich and embroidered clothing, and smiled as he appraised his latest plunder. His scrutinizing and lecherous gaze paid particular attention to the women, his eyes never quite rising high enough to look any in the face. When his eyes fell on a Ranger with uniquely radiant auburn hair, he smiled and pointed at her.
The three other orcs grinned as they advanced on the woman. We shouted our defiance and started toward Kiinna, but the shaman with the ceremonial staff grunted something and waved its staff at us. Ice suddenly grew over our feet planting us to the floor wherever we stood. We could only watch as they fell atop her, tearing at her long coat like starving wolves on a sheep. She was naked in seconds, fierce red lines in her skin from their fingernails.
The officer had Kiinna by the hair, dragging her out of our prison kicking and screaming with the other orcs when Lanisa suddenly shouted. It was a guttural, grunting shout that stopped the orcs in their tracks. Everyone, both orcs and us, turned to look at her in surprise.
She said a few more words in the orcish language and the four suddenly laughed. They turned to leave with their prize once more when she spit a few words at them. The four orcs stopped again, this time turning to stare at her with narrowed murderous eyes. Lanisa cocked her head to the side, thrust out a hip, and added a few more words with a childlike tone. She finished by thrusting her chest out at them and giving it a little shake. The three underlings looked at their leader then suddenly broke out in uproarious laughter. And from the leader’s reddening complexion, it was obviously at his expense.
He turned and advanced on the athletic beauty stopping just in front of her. With one hand he grabbed her and ripped her up to his eye level with such power that the ice holding her in place shattered. Almost touching faces, it growled something at Lanisa. She said something back with that same childlike tone. It drove its free fist into her belly and dropped her to the hard, frozen ground. She gasped for air on her hands and knees.
The leader looked somewhat pacified by her coughing helplessness until it looked back at its three underlings. They whispered amongst each other and laughed, pointing at him. His face took a fresh shade of red and he roared stopping the private conversations. It looked back to Lanisa and growled out a few words, then turned to its underlings and growled one last word. The three roared in laughter again, this time the leader joined in. He returned to his compatriots and, after one last grope of Kiinna, the four left emptyhanded. After the ice wall regrew, the ice around our feet melted away.
“What the hell was that?” I asked. “Why didn’t you speak to them in the beginning, and how did you convince them to let Kiinna go?”
“My ability to speak orc was the only advantage we had,” she answered as she picked Kiinna’s enchanted long coat off the ground and wrapped it around the elf’s shuddering form. It was damaged, but fortunately not enough to nullify its magic. “I thought to save it for just the right occasion.”
“You might have at least told us we had an advantage,” Tallus said, running a hand over Kiinna’s red hair compassionately. “And Kiinna?”
“I challenged him to a duel.”
“I can’t
believe that worked,” I breathed in astonishment.
“It almost didn’t,” Lanisa said, her face hard as stone. “Winters was right about the unrest. Normally, they’d ignore a challenge from a mere woman. Orcish women aren’t much better than property to them, and non-orc females even less. But with his own generals already questioning his ability to lead he couldn’t turn down a challenge from a non-orc female that challenged not just his leadership, but his manhood as well. He’d lose too much respect.”
“I’d think accepting would have made him appear weak too,” I said just as the wall started to melt away again.
“It did to a point, but he saved a lot of face by adding a special ‘condition’ to our match.”
A host of twenty orcs came in, armored in their unusual black metals. They motioned us all out of our prison. Carrying those too wounded to make the trek on their own, we followed our jailer’s directions and moved out into the dark orc city.
I’d been right when I thought our icy enclosure was carved out of a solid glacier. The entire orc city was melted out of one giant sheet of ice. The meager lighting available barely illuminated a surprisingly complex city of buildings that must have required extremely skilled architects and artisans to design. Even if magic could create them, it would have required extraordinary engineering to keep them and the glacial ceiling from collapsing.
Ice structures several stories high reached to the ceiling of the glacier and doubled as supports for the glacier’s massive weight. Bridges with hand rails of pure ice stretched from building to building, sometimes spanning hundreds of feet. The rock under our feet was solidly packed and permafrozen rounded gravel.
Most of the light came from the sunshine that filtered in through the large opening at the front that birthed the river we’d followed here. As the orcs led us deeper into the glacier, the frozen roof became thicker cutting down the light that filtered through the ice. It darkened far too quickly for my vision to adjust, and I kept tripping over who-knows-what in the gloom. Tallus took my arm and guided me as we approached a light in the distance. The light turned out to be our destination, filtering out of a tunnel in a wall of solid ice. The far side of the tunnel was both magnificent and terrifying.
A New World Page 21
