Max, with his elven vision, was first to spot the smoke rising above the trees ahead of them. He whistled softly to Battleaxe, and the dwarf waited for him to catch up. Whispering, he said, “Single column of smoke ahead. Smells like a wood fire. Could be our settlement.”
The dwarf just nodded and began to creep forward, Max and Dalia waiting half a minute before following. Max could barely see the scout as he blended in with the environment, and though he didn’t know it, the only reason he could see him at all was because they were in the same party.
When he paused again and waved them forward, Max and Dalia crept up as quietly as they could, Max using his Fade spell since they were moving slowly, crouching down behind a rotting log as they looked across a field of what Max thought might be wheat. There were three buildings that he could see, the largest being a barn big enough to have maybe a dozen horse stalls inside. The next building was obviously a home, and the last some kind of utility shed. Attached to the barn was a wide corral, and walking around inside were six creatures that resembled horses from someone’s nightmare. They stood slightly taller than your average horse, bulky like Clydesdales, with longer necks and bristly fur that covered their entire bodies. Their elongated heads ended in wide snouts filled with sharp teeth. Max cast Identify on the nearest.
Equisaurian Male
Level: 4
Health: 400/400
Battleaxe noticed Max staring at the beasts. “They be common mounts among the orcs, trolls too. Strong enough to bear the weight o’ fully armored orcs, yet still fast as a horse. And if ye let em loose in the wild, they can feed themselves. They can eat grass like a horse, but prefer tasty critters like squirrels n rats.”
“Nasty beasts.” Dalia added. “The orcs call ‘em Ja’kang in their tongue. Means… manglers, or maybe shredders. Don’t get yer face too close to theirs, or ya won’t be quite so pretty.” She winked at him. “And keep yer hands away from em, too. I’m thinkin ye don’t want to lose another.”
“Duly noted, thank you.” Max took another look at the beasts and shuddered. Turning his focus to the house, he spotted his first female orc emerging through the front door. She was as tall as the males, and muscular, but not as wide in the shoulder. She wore a simple set of leather pants and shirt with a wide belt at her narrow waist. Stepping off the porch carrying a bucket in each hand, she walked across the open space toward a well with its own bucket and winch on a wooden frame. The trio watched as she dropped the well bucket down, waited a moment, then easily cranked it back up with one hand. She repeated the process twice more until both of her buckets were full, then turned and carried them back inside with little apparent effort.
Dalia pursed her lips, then whispered. “Something not right here. The Ja’kang are no good for farming. They can be trained as mounts, and may develop a loyalty to their rider over time, but will not stand for being harnessed. Especially not to a plow. The orcs use oxen for farming, just like everyone else.” She pointed toward the utility building, upon which leaned two massive yokes and the leather straps and buckles that went with them.
“Aye, this be some sort o’ way station.” Battleaxe agreed. “Replacement mounts fer patrols, a place to get food, sleep. Likely, based on the size o’ the door, it were a human farm. Some poor bastard orc farmer took it over, and got ordered by his chief to maintain the station.”
“Is Regin going to have a problem with one of the ears being female?” Max asked quietly.
The sergeant snorted. “Ye ever see’d an orc female fight? That one there picks up a sword or spear, ye better run. They be faster than the males, and more vicious. They care not about the honor of a fight, only about killin ye in painful ways.”
“She bites, too.” A deep voice came from behind them, and all three spun around, weapons in hand, to find a male orc standing a dozen or so feet back, a bow in hand and arrow nocked.
“Easy there, LT. Or should I say King Storm?”
At the use of his rank, Max’s eyes widened. The voice wasn’t familiar, nor was the face, but then none of his men had been orcs. “Sound off!” he growled at the orc, who quickly came to attention and snapped a very human salute.
“It’s me, lieutenant, Smitty. Corporal Smithfield, sir. Uh, sort of.” He shrugged, grinning a wide orcish grin.
“Smitty.” Max held tight to the halberd in his left hand, using it to prop himself up. He’d hoped that some of his men had been offered and made the same choice he had. But having one right here in front of him, in the body of an orc, was more than a little surprising.
“Sir, are you okay?” the orc stepped forward, concerned. He saw the sling, and the weight his squad leader was putting on the polearm he was using.
Max straightened back up as the confused dwarves looked to him, their weapons raised.
“At ease, Smitty. These are friends of mine, Battleaxe and Dalia.”
Smitty nodded, “Dwarves, cool. I almost picked dwarf as my race.” His head perked up and his gaze moved to the barn behind the dwarves. “Uh, how bout we continue this someplace else? Anyone at the house sees you dwarves, things could get ugly.”
He waited for a nod from Max, then turned and walked deeper into the woods. They followed for a good five minutes, the dwarves tense and awaiting an ambush or trap of some kind. Eventually the orc lowered his head and stepped into a shallow cave. A moment later he struck a match and lit a small torch mounted to the wall.
“This is where I woke up in this world.” He took a seat on a large stone and motioned for them to do the same. “I come here when I need to be alone. No one will bother us. Not even the animals. It’s some kind of safe zone.”
Max took a seat, leaning back against the stone of the cave wall. “Smitty. Damn. Last I saw you…” he closed his eyes, reliving the corporal’s death.
“I took a mortar round up the poop chute and evolved into a pink mist? Yeah. Shit hurt, too.” Smitty looked down at his feet and shook his head. “They got you, too, huh?”
Max had to swallow a couple times before he could speak. “I think they got all of us. I was only a minute or so behind you. I’m… sorry, Smitty. We were given shit intel. Those bastards sent us into a trap.” His voice caught, and he couldn’t say any more. The guilt from getting his squad killed hit him like a tidal wave.
“Hey, I know, boss. I was there, too. Sat in the same briefing you did. This ain’t on you.” Smitty motioned to his orc body. “Besides, this world is kind of way cooler!”
It was Max’s turn to shake his head. After a long moment of silence, and a few deep breaths, he asked, “So… an orc?”
“Right?” Smitty grinned again, quickly excited by the new topic. “I always played an orc or a goblin when I was gaming. When the voice in the grey room woke me up and gave me the option to come here… well it was a no-brainer.”
Max recalled that Smitty had been one of the gamers in the squad. “Voice in the grey room? You didn’t talk to a Valkyrie?”
“What? No, but that would have been awesome!” Smitty looked at him. “I checked you out while I was sneakin up behind you. What’s a chimera? I didn’t see that as an option.”
Max let out a long, slow exhale and said, “That’s a long story.” He looked at the two dwarves, and added, “I will need your promise that you’ll never repeat what you’re about to hear.”
“Ye mean about the two o’ ye both bein Battleborne?” Battleaxe winked at him. “We’ll not speak of it without yer permission, ye have me word on that.”
“Mine as well.” Dalia smiled at them both, clearly no longer nervous around the orc.
Max spent the next hour telling all of them about the battle that killed him, the conversation with Hildi the Valkyrie, his reincarnation and the selection of chimera that had been made on his behalf. He relayed the highlights of the events since his arrival in the world, then asked Smitty to do the same.
“Wow. I don’t have nearly as much to tell, boss. There was no Valkyrie, I just died, then woke up in a gr
ey haze. A big voice told me I’d been given the choice between Valhalla and reincarnation, and I chose reincarnation. Then I went through pretty much the same process you did, picking a race and all that. I woke up here, and spent a day in the woods killing squirrels and bunnies with sticks, wearing nothing but a diaper, before I found the farm.”
He pointed in the general direction of the way station, then continued. “The farmer and his wife were kind enough to take me in and feed me. He put me to work, giving me all these little noob quests like carry water from the well, and feed the scary mutant horse things. His wife taught me how to shoot a bow, and now they send me out hunting pretty much every day. I have quests to bring in different kinds of meat. They need a lot of meat. Like, really a lot. Some for them, some for the mounts, but most goes to the orcs who stop in here for R&R.”
Smitty hung his head. “They don’t let me eat much of it. Just enough to keep me alive and fit enough to hunt.” He pointed to a fire pit in the cave. “Every other day I kill myself a rabbit or something and bring it here to cook and eat, before I take the rest back to them. I was pretty much hating life, thinking I was going to be their slave until I got brave enough to fight or run. Then I saw that notice about you becoming a king, and I was like ‘whoa!’”
Smitty had always sounded vaguely like Bill and Ted from the old 80’s movie, and the guys in the squad gave him endless shit over it. Now it just made Max smile.
“When I saw the announcement, at first I was like that dude has the same name as the LT… but then I started to figure, if I was here, maybe you were here, too. So I started planning to take off, and try to figure out where your city was. And now here you are!”
Max took a moment to Identify his corporal.
BigGunz
Orc Hunter
Level 8
Health: 600/600
“BigGunz? Really, dude?” Max stared at a slightly uncomfortable Smitty.
“Yeah, it’s like one of those triple meaning things. If you say it real fast, it sounds like big‘uns… you know? Like I got big’uns? And big gunz can be big guns like my old M2, or big guns like these babies!” He flexed his orcish biceps.
“Yeah, I got it, Smitty. And I’m not calling you that. You’re still Smitty, now and forever. So here’s the deal. My new city needs citizens, and right now it’s full of dwarves and kobolds. But I’m making it an open city where all races can live and work in peace. If you’re interested, you can join us.” He paused and looked toward the cave exit. “We came here for two reasons. One, I got the quest I mentioned to kill orcs for the god of crafting. And two, a quest to deliver a legendary sword to the orc chief and try to create a peace treaty. You got a problem with us killing orcs, Smitty?”
The orc shook his head. “I think maybe you’re the one with big’uns, boss. No, I have no problem with you killing orcs. In fact, start with the ones at the farm. They were good to me for like, two days, then started treating me like their personal slave. Especially Grelza, the wife. A couple times when her husband passed out drunk, she… took advantage of my manly charms. And it wasn’t as fun as you’d think.” He lowered his eyes.
Max and the dwarves did their best to keep straight faces. Smitty was like a breath of fresh air for Max, and he found that he’d really missed the guy, despite not knowing him well. He hadn’t been with the unit for long before their last battle. Max focused for a moment and sent Smitty a party invite, which was instantly accepted. Max then shared both quests with Smitty.
“Right on, boss! Our mission objective is clear. Kill the orcs and clear the farmhouse. Don’t get too close to those mutant lizard-horse things. They’ll tolerate me, now, since I’ve been the one feeding them. But they’ll try n eat your face.”
Smitty packed up a few things that he’d left stashed in the cave, trying to stuff them into a small canvas bag he carried on a leather thong over his shoulder. Max took pity on him and put the heavier items into his own inventory. “We’ll get you some better storage when we get back.”
Five minutes later, they were headed toward the farm. Smitty led them in from the back side of the barn, out of sight of both the orcs in the house, and the mounts in the corral, so they wouldn’t make a lot of noise.
The fight went smoothly, as the farmer was already drunk and nearly passed out with his head on the kitchen table. Max kicked in the door, charging in to take on the female, who instantly whirled at him with a long kitchen knife in one hand, and a heavy frying pan in the other. She surprised Max with a clanging blow directly to his face that he barely saw coming. The shot stunned him for a moment, and might have cost him a knife between the ribs, but Battleaxe stepped in with his shield and blocked the blow.
After that it was just a matter of a few seconds. The female was surrounded, and Max cast Confuse on her, which caused her to lower her guard. Smitty claimed the kill, stepping forward and taking the knife from her, then driving it up under her chin into her brain. The dwarves tackled the drunken farmer, pinning him to the ground so that Smitty could slit his throat with the same knife.
Max used his one good arm to drag the female out back and away from the house, Smitty did the same with the farmer, then cut the left ear from both and handed them to Max. “This world is pretty hard core, boss.” Was all he said as he passed them over.
“That it is. And as far as I can tell, there are no respawns. So watch your ass. No stupid stunts.”
“Roger that, boss.”
They spent the evening in the house, taking turns on watch in case a patrol came by looking for replacement mounts. Except for Max, who hadn’t slept, other than being unconscious, for nearly forty eight hours. He crawled into his bedroll on the floor of the main room and passed out while the others took their time looting the house.
When morning came, Red woke Max as gently as she could. “Time to wake, your majesty. The sun is up, and breakfast is almost ready.”
Max opened his eyes and blinked a few times, then smiled at Red. “Good morning.” He whispered.
Red was practically bursting with excitement. “You found one of your men! Squad. Team? Whatever you call them! That’s great news, Max.” She clapped her tiny hands together, floating higher up off the floor as Max sat up in his bedroll.
“Yeah, I’m pretty glad about that myself. It gives me hope that some of the others might be here somewhere, too.”
“Hey, who’s the tiny fairy chick?” Smitty walked into the room, shocking both Max and Red.
“You can see her?” Max asked the stupid question even though the answer was clear. His brain was a little slow catching up.
“Uhm, yes?” Smitty looked confused. “I just said that, boss. She’s right there, red hair, green outfit, tiny little hottie.” He smiled at Red, who promptly disappeared from the sight of both men. Smitty looked over at Max, his eyebrows up.
“That was Red, my guide. She’s a Fae, soulbound to me when I arrived here. Invisible to everyone but me, until now. Maybe it’s a Battleborne thing? I’m sure she just went to find out. Do me a favor and don’t talk to her directly when other people are around. If they still can’t see her, we don’t need them thinking we’re crazy.”
Smitty rolled with it. “Invisible fairy guide. Very cool. No worries, boss. Lips are sealed. Operational security and all that.” He grinned at Max, holding out a hand to help him up. “That dwarf dude has been cooking breakfast, and damn does it smell good. He kicked me out for trying to sneak a taste. Said I should come wake you. Let’s go eat!”
Chapter 20
After getting some enjoyment from watching Smitty learn that he’d gulped down spidorc meat for breakfast, the group sat around the kitchen table to discuss their next moves. Smitty was as helpful as he could be, which in turn helped the dwarves trust him despite his orcish outer shell.
“The patrols run in groups of four, some on foot, some mounted. There was a mounted patrol here yesterday morning early, and they show up every couple days. So we should be good for a day or so. They
’ll start tracking us, though, as soon as they find this place empty.”
Max nodded. That was more time than he was expecting. Still, two days would be better. The longer he could go without some kind of alert going out, the better.
Dalia was clearly thinking the same. “We could remain here, ambush the next patrol when they return. That would give us a full two days.”
Smitty nodded. “Actually, we could go to the mine, then come back, and be here when the patrol stops by. That way we could all level up a little bit.”
“The mine?” Max raised one eyebrow.
“It’s about five miles northwest of here. The miners come here sometimes to pick up supplies. Grelza talked about them a lot. There are a dozen of them, and I think she’s had relations with each of them.” He shook his head, then continued. “We could run there, kill the miners, then run back and be waiting for the patrol.”
“Or we could ride those beasts out there.” Max suggested. “Get there faster, and less tired. Same thing on the return trip.”
“Aye, and if yer patrol arrives early, they might not think to track the beasties.”
Smitty looked dubious, an almost comical expression on an orc. “Those things are dangerous, guys. Seriously.”
Max nodded his head. “You said they know you. We’ll let you introduce us. We’ll feed them some of this spidorc meat, and it’ll be the best meal they’ve ever had. We only need to ride them five miles, and back, right?”
Smitty still didn’t look happy, but he agreed. With that settled, they spent an hour hauling loot that they didn’t want to carry with them to a spot out behind the barn, where they buried it. There were several swords, shields, and bows from a small armory. Sets of pots and pans, knives, cheap iron flatware, and other kitchen items as well as wrapped packages of jerky, cheese, and potato-like things. Crates filled with blankets, torches, leather hides, and spare saddles were piled in the rearmost stall of the barn. Max was literally taking everything but the kitchen sink. Anything that could be used in his new city, or sold to merchants.
Battleborne Page 31
