by Paul Kite
Well, Digar didn’t do it to save his now worthless life. He hoped to take revenge on the leader of the guild of thieves and gangsters, who sent his brother and him on a hopeless mission, as it turned out. They didn’t even know what this man was capable of, even if he looked like a sickly little man dressed up in strange black armor and armed with a pair of swords.
If now the armless warrior returned to the oasis of Tir-Dom, on the border of the Free Lands, along the river Valand. Then he would have only two options —become a beggar who everyone hated or look for a job corresponding to his skills. But what could Diger do besides take intelligent creature’s lives? Nothing! So it was almost impossible to survive as a cripple in a single oasis city, where he could run into trouble every day. Sooner or later, the maimed orc, unable to defend himself, would die anyway.
“Where does he live?” a new question followed.
“In the yellow mansion with a green fence, near the golden fountain. Outcasts from the tribe of short people live nearby. They have the only forge in the whole oasis, so you can’t miss it.”
“Dwarfs?” the rustling voice asked.
“Well, yes! Dwarfs,” the one-eyed confirmed. “Only beardless... Heh.” Despite the fact that the orc was on the verge of death, the fact that the dwarfs didn’t have a beard amused him for some reason.
“Thank you,” the voice hissed.
Digar closed his eye tightly, quietly rejoicing that he would be avenged, because he revealed the instigator, but... A moment passed, then another, and the orc was still standing in the middle of an empty alley like a frozen statue.
“Fuck,” the green-skin swore wickedly, binding the injured limb with a belt tightly. “Die, Arenar! You deserve to die, I never liked you.”
Digar had no doubt that the unknown man, who had suddenly turned from a victim into a hunter, would visit the mansion of the head of the local guild of thieves the same night.
“Forgive me, brother,” approaching the dead Miroh’s body, the one-eyed began to search the pockets of his sibling.
Pulling out what he was looking for, Digar weighed a bag of coins in his hand, pleasantly feeling its weight. Hiding the money, he picked up the weapon and hastily left the damn dead end street. It turned, by the strange will of the gods, from a holding pen for the victim into a trap for a pair of unlucky gangsters.
“Perhaps it’s time to move to a quieter place,” the orc muttered looking around. “I have long dreamed of my own tavern, somewhere on the edge of the Free Land close to the bearded little ones. Everything will be quiet there. I need to open a couple of orcish caches and slip away before my guild members catch me …”
Half an hour later, a dark figure of average height climbed over the green fence of Arenar’s mansion. The man, having quickly looked around, jumped to the ground and, darting from one cover to the next, headed for the front door. Judging by the light in a pair of windows on the first floor of a two-story house, there were not a lot of people inside, so he could safely enter from the main entrance.
“They could have put up a better defense,” a hissing voice uttered disappointedly after he opened the door and looked how a weak magic spell was crawling powerlessly over his enchanted armor slips.
The man found the head of the guild quickly. The strange person came to the wooden door decorated with intricate carvings and, put his eye on the keyhole, and watched what was going on in the room.
He saw how Arenar, an old but still strong orc, argued loudly about something with his young relative. Then he heard a loud expletive and the head of the guild of thieves and gangsters turned around, looking for something weighty and preferably heavy. Arenar assumed that after a blow to the head, the young orc would immediately learn his place and would no longer dare argue with elders. Deciding that the moment was more than appropriate, the warrior pulled out two throwing knives and pushed the door.
Arenar didn’t pay much attention to the door creaking, thinking the fellow was trying to sneak out. But the young orc, who was not really going to give up so easily, was still in the room. The sound behind his back made him turn around and... A sharp short knife, launched by the experienced killer, interrupted his attempt to warn the elder orc about a strange person who dared barge in and disrupt a serious conversation.
“Shagod, stop!” the head of the guild shouted loudly without turning around. “Come back! We’re not done here!”
“I’m afraid only a professional necromancer can now bring him back,” the man said, carefully putting the corpse of the young orc down on the floor.
“Arenar?”
“Who are you?” turning suddenly, the orc instantly estimated the combat capability of the mysterious enemy. His hand reached for his belt, but... there was no weapon, of course — hardly anyone would carry an ax or a sword in his own house.
“Your future depends on whether you agree to work for me,” the man answered thoughtfully. “If you agree, I’ll be a good master. But if you don’t…” the stranger paused. Arenar furiously clenched his empty fists and angrily puffed, “Well, the role of a killer is quite familiar to me.”
Initially, Dazrael didn’t plan to linger in this oasis for long. As the magic mark he hung on Kraven, shortly before his departure to Harith-Hodor, lit up somewhere in the south-west of the Orcs Wastelands in the Der-Hawk area. The elf had changed his appearance into a human form in advance with the help of the amulet he took from Livion. Dazrael was only this morning transferred to the only place he knew — Tir-Dom —with the help of an expensive teleportation scroll. He was going to reach his goal with a passing caravan. The thought of hiring a detachment of green-skinned warriors couldn’t have arisen in a terrible dream. Like any elf, light, dark or dawn, he couldn’t stand orcs! However, these fanged monsters responded to the sharp-eared race with the same attitude! It was ‘mutual’ love.
However, chance intervened in the course of events! Dazrael decided to take a chance and... if Arenar valued his life and would pronounce a special oath in the face of god, then why not? Moreover, to overcome the racial hatred of the eternal enemy wasn’t so difficult.
“Who are you?” Arenar snarled.
“The master of the guild ‘Elghinn Dal Veldrin’,” the man confessed, then took off his demonic mask and, uttering the code word, deactivated the amulet, which changed his appearance.
“Dazrael?!” The old orc was able to analyze the situation very quickly, of course, many criminals and law-abiding citizens knew the name of the only light elf who’d received that title in the Shadow guild.
“Yes,” the elf nodded, sitting down on the table unceremoniously. “Well, I need …” he began to make demands, which weren’t many.
The listing of all three points took only a couple of minutes and, of course, Arenar agreed without hesitation. The head of the guild was in no hurry to go to the next world. It wasn’t difficult to fulfill the request of the strange elf who decided to cross the orkish Wastelands from one end to the other. Moreover, Arenar was going to send a message to his brother in Der-Hawk through a shaman. This would be a request to meet a squad of orcs accompanying the noble lord. A couple of hints on the man’s race would be enough. Arenar could clearly imagine what the berserker would do, thirst for blood. This would allow the old orc not to break the oath and, accordingly, avoid the punishment of the gods.
Chapter 29
The vast majority of intelligent beings in the huge caravan were orcs, among which, to my surprise, I found five players. Was it really that interesting for them to walk for several days from one place to another, spending days in a capsule? They went back to the real world only during breaks, if the senior guard allowed them, let’s say, to ‘sleep’. The second large group consisted of people — slaves who were taken to the Tir-Dom oasis of for sale. Yes, that was so short and clear!
In general, An-Har’s caravan was in the business of buying living goods, artifacts and alchemical ingredients in the oases. The goods were currently stored in the enchanted chests.
The trader delivered them to the border with the Free Lands and sold in bulk to the dealers from local markets.
However, among the slaves, I saw several elves, dark and light, dwarfs, and other rare representatives of different races. All of them the orcs captured during their sea raids on coastal cities, and then sold to such buyers as An-Har, or left as employees for personal use. After all, the orcs themselves didn’t like to get their hands dirty by working. War was what they loved to do! With the exception of green-skinned settlers, this was a rare occurrence. According to the local game legend, a relatively ‘peace-loving’ group of orcs left the Wastelands once upon a time because of that. They preferred working to fighting.
By the way, remembering Captain Kirk’s words, I now understood his attitude to the orcs. It seemed, the seafarers of the green-skinned race differed from all the others not only by their militancy but also by their fearlessness and madness! Surprisingly, they were ready to make long hikes for the sake of booty and to travel great distances. The orcs sailed not only along the shores of the vast continent but sometimes bypassed it in a circle. In this, they were similar to Vikings, who also loved to sail the seas and oceans.
Yawning widely, I looked with a bored gaze at the almost dead, sun-scorched desert through which our caravan was slowly moving. What you could see were mostly domesticated giant scorpions and monitor lizards, slightly larger than an average horse. The wizard and I were sitting in a kind of tent set up right on the back of an arthropod creature, it was the only way we could hide from the scorching sun. The orc driver, sitting on the head of a cephalothorax, managed a multi-legged transport with the help of a special amulet. He seemed not to suffer from the heat at all. He was probably used to it.
Five heavy bales with provisions were in a tent, this structure was most likely called something else, but I used to call it that. There was also a slave elf who was still unconscious. Lsaeros bought him for most of the money raised from the sale of amulets to An-Har. Thin leather bracelets, that completely blocked the elf’s strength and intelligence, were placed on the wrists of an unlucky NPC, so the intelligent creature became completely submissive to the will of his owner. It was similar to my Ansr-run collar. The wizard wasn’t satisfied with this artifact and cast a ritual of submission over the poor creature with the help of blood magic at our first halt.
Why does he need a slave? I thought after short bargaining and a final deal between the wizard and the main caravan operator.
According to Lsaeros’s plan, we had to leave the caravan quietly and unnoticed at the nearest night stop by the lake. He explained that in order to pass through the forest, we needed a victim. Since none of the orcs would voluntarily sacrifice his life, it was better to use a slave. Moreover, no one was interested in the true purpose of why someone was buying a slave. The wizard put the elf to sleep so that he wouldn’t disturb us. Saving food and water was another advantage of him being unconscious. However, Lsaeros didn’t forget to mention that the victim must be killed in a special way and, of course, only he knew all the subtleties of ritual murder! Hmmm, the wizard did not trust me.
Speaking of runes, I remembered the wizard's promise to teach me some spells, so with great difficulty, I persuaded him to carry out the ritual of submission in my presence. Therefore, very carefully watching Lsaeros’s actions, I tried to remember the sequence of inscribing each rune, the order of their unification and a short key spell. It seemed I remembered. I couldn’t tell for sure whether this knowledge would be useful to me or not. Let’s hope that I didn’t devote so much attention to Blood magic for nothing. Although I had no opportunity to test my knowledge in practice so far.
It was the second day of our journey through the endless desert. During the last rebuilding after a shortstop, our arthropod transport was placed in the central part of the caravan of about thirty scorpions and almost a dozen varans. The orc warriors, like real cavalrymen, circled on the lizards’ backs not far from us, studying the area in search of danger or any suspicious movement. They exterminated countless small creatures, and used them to feed animals that seemed capable of eating even the sand under their paws! Thank all local gods, nothing unusual or dangerous occurred on our way to the oasis. I really hoped that we wouldn’t meet anyone dangerous. I was already tired of all these adventures interspersed with the killing of NPCs and mobs. I just wanted to get to the divine source as quickly as possible...
We just entered the desert between the rocky mountains of Omu-Og-Gash, which meant something like ‘The Mountains of Dead Spirits’ and a forest growing near the lake. The orcs tried to keep an equal distance from them when, unexpectedly, the order of An-Har, who headed the caravan, reached us in a chain. We had to speed up. The orcs riding the varan divided into two groups and, exposing their weapons, lined up on both sides of the caravan stretching into a long line.
I’d recently heard the story of one of the caravan orcs, by the way, it was our driver. According to him, in the mountains that were now on our right, gnolls and goblins had long lived, hiding in deep underground holes. From time to time, they raided nearby camps and even reached large oases.
Therefore, those who found themselves on the trade route when they attacked were especially unlucky. A crowd of hyena-like, but certainly intelligent creatures — the gnolls and cave goblins destroyed everything in their path! Only a large detachment of orcs of no less than a hundred yatagans and with the support of at least three strong shamans could resist them. We didn’t have such a large number of warriors, and there was only one rather weak shaman. These small creatures reasonably avoided the dangerous place, rushing into the depths of the Wastelands in search of a weaker prey, trying to capture their opponents alive and relatively intact. The orcs who had survived the gnolls’ raids told different stories about what they did with their captives. Some said that a few, but quite powerful shamans, who ruled the gnolls and goblins, sacrificed captives to their terrible and ugly god in the dungeons. Others thought that they simply used them as food... In general, opinions differed, but there was no one who wanted to find out the hard way! Moreover, no one had ever returned from the mountains alive.
Of course, the orcs often tried to expel them from there, but, bogged down in the lower levels, they always retreated. Large and strong warriors were not used to cutting up small and numerous opponents in narrow, low passages. Moreover, the magic of the shamans refused to work — the god of the gnolls and goblins watched over their vile creations, protecting them from final extermination and genocide.
“Kraven, try not to shine your favorite daggers,” the wizard whispered to me. “Use only your swords! Despite the fact that Gui-Ten ordered An-Har to take us to the border, I still don’t trust him. This caravan leader is too cunning. You won’t convince him that your artifact daggers cannot be transferred. When trying to pick them up, the orcs will either kill us or enslave us. And you are already... so…” Lsaeros hinted at the ‘jewelry’ that adorned my neck.
“All right,” I fixed the strap of my weapon behind my back. “Do you think the caravan could be attacked? It seems that, according to the orc commander, the gnolls and goblins only recently made a raid, and as I recall, an unsuccessful one. They were badly damaged. So they should not, in theory, so quickly restore the number of... hmm... their population.”
“I have no idea,” the wizard shrugged, “But if An-Har was so worried, then we also need to be on guard. However, if they attack, we will leave the caravan early. They will be attracted by the more alluring and accessible prey. But even if the gnolls or goblins go after us, we will fight them off.”
“Aha, we will fight them off,” I muttered incredulously, mentally smiling at the naivety of the ‘great’ wizard. “On foot! Of course!”
“But I didn’t say that we would go on foot,” Lsaeros smiled slyly. “While you were busy listening to our driver, I managed to mix some of my blood into the scorpion’s food. Therefore, if necessary I can instantly take control over it.”
“Wo
w!” I was genuinely surprised by the wizard’s forethought. “Without the ritual?”
“Of course!” the wizard lost his temper. “This isn’t a reasonable creature!”
I made a mental note that, in order to subdue simple mobs, unlike people, it wasn’t necessary to carry out special rituals. Moreover, to distract the wizard, who was complaining about my complete lack of talent, I opened the canopy and looked cautiously at the rocky mountains. The distance was about five hundred yards. The caravan had already passed halfway through, and soon we would leave behind this dangerous place, gradually moving away to the horizon.
Chapter 30
However, my hopes, like the hopes of the other orcs, didn’t come true that day. Troubles came from where no one expected it!
“Danger!” someone exclaimed fearfully at the tail of the caravan. “There, in the sand, a scor…” the cry broke off abruptly.
From under the sand, a big tail with a sharp poisonous sting at the end jumped out like a lightning, and, piercing the body of the overly attentive driver, disappeared under the sand.
The caravan scorpion lost its driver, as the amulet was gone along with the orc and, the caravan immediately slowed down. Its powerful mandibles clenched a couple of times, it pulled out its claws threateningly toward the varan who dared approach it. Our only shaman was sitting on the back of the varan behind the warrior.
When did he manage to get out of his hmm... tent decorated with various bunches and tufts of grass?
However, the arthropod stood still for a second, and then, as if nothing had happened, quickly began catching up with its relatives ahead. The shaman knew his job well and quickly restored the broken threads of the subjugating spell.
“Turn right!” someone’s loud voice, amplified by magic, rang out. It sounded like An-Har — the head of the caravan and its part-time owner.”
