by Dale Lucas
He turned, followed the imagined trajectory, and found another body moving on the lowest branch of an enormous ash, a little ahead and to the right of Wallenbrand. This was neither a troll nor an orc, but something small, thinner of bone, knobbier of joint. Its evil, grinning face was garishly elongated and sported a large, protruding, bat-like ear on either side.
A goblin—yet another rare sight in this part of the world. The little imp was already reaching for another crow-feathered arrow from its quiver as Torval stared at it, perched there on the tree limb.
“Galen!” Torval shouted, and beat a hasty retreat toward the cover of a redwood some distance behind him. “Archer! In the trees!”
From the corner of his eye, still moving, Torval saw Galen nock and draw another arrow, take three steps forward, and swing herself round until she had a perfect bead on the goblin sniper in the trees. She loosed her arrow. Torval heard it strike something, but didn’t bother looking until he’d made it behind the redwood and knew he wouldn’t be skewered in the next instant.
He peered back. Galen’s arrow had struck the tree trunk, missing the goblin by about three feet. The needle-toothed little archer was already moving out along the tree limb. He loosed an arrow as he went.
Torval turned to make sure Galen wasn’t hit. He was relieved when he saw she’d already retreated for cover, as well, leaping behind a fallen pine and yanking another arrow from her quiver. Tuvera crouched behind the same pine, scanning the woods around them, looking for signs of more enemies.
The sound of pounding bootheels and the rattle of armor reached Torval’s ears just before Wallenbrand called out.
“All sides! Orcs!”
Torval searched the forest. Wallenbrand was right. They seemed to be everywhere. A young, muscular orc bull had appeared from behind the same ash where the goblin archer sat and now charged Wallenbrand, a small shield strapped on one arm, a nasty-looking war hammer in his other hand. A tall, trim orc with patchy, discolored skin—large, pale blotches spaced haphazardly over the visible portions of its elegantly muscled body—closed from far behind Wallenbrand and Torval, bearing in one hand a long spear tipped with a blade almost as long as a sword. Still farther behind, following the same track Torval and company had advanced from, a stocky, potbellied specimen loped steadily, lifting a big battle-ax above its head as it came. On the opposite flank, beyond where Tuvera and Galen sheltered behind their fallen pine, yet another orc advanced: a female, the sides of her head shorn close while the rest of her thick, black hair cascaded from the crown of her head. The charging bitch wielded a long, forward-swept saber, poised and ready to sweep down with lethal force.
Four orcs, a goblin archer, and a troll hiding in the bushes. What in the sundry hells had they stumbled into?
All at once, the world was a storm of ringing steel and hoarse war cries. Torval had just enough time to see Tuvera engage the orc female while Galen simultaneously nocked an arrow and fired at the fat one approaching from the rear. He then spun back toward Wallenbrand.
The young buck was closing. Wallenbrand stood ready, sword held two-handed, gaze sweeping back and forth between the young hammer swinger and the slowly approaching spearman. The buck was closer, moving faster, so Wallenbrand turned to meet him just in time, parrying three hard blows from the hammer.
Torval saw the spearman spring forward, his slow advance becoming a hard charge in a single breath. That big spear-tip cut through the air ahead of its master, plunging right toward Wallenbrand’s exposed back.
Torval’s feet moved before his conscious mind even realized the old man needed help. Unbidden, his maul swept down in a savage two-handed arc and he drove the seeking spear point into the earth at Wallenbrand’s feet, just inches from where the old mercenary now shuffled in his duel with the young orc.
Wallenbrand landed a hard blow to the young buck’s shield and sent it reeling. Without hesitation he spun toward the spearman—still stunned from Torval’s intervention—and immediately went on the offensive. Wallenbrand was clearly no master swordsman, but he was fast and strong, and his blows drove the orc spearman back. But the orc, to Torval’s amazement, proved to be an artist with his weapon. With practiced assurance and moves that could only be described as graceful, the spearman parried every blow Wallenbrand landed, long spear shaft and fearsome blade dipping, whistling, sweeping, and clashing.
Torval would have intervened again, but he saw the young buck, now recovered, charging for another attack. He rushed to meet it and laid into its shield before the youngster could even poise its hammer for another attack.
Torval was ready to bring his maul around, seeking a small span of exposed rib cage on the young orc’s right side, when a great shadow fell over him. The young orc’s gaze rose, taking in something tall behind Torval. The buck retreated a single step.
Torval spun, knowing well what he’d find: that troll, towering over him, ready to crush him with a single, furious blow.
The troll roared, raised one huge, wide foot, and brought it crashing down. Torval barely sidestepped it.
Another roar. A fist rose and fell. Torval threw himself to his left and once more narrowly escaped the crushing blow.
Snarling, the troll drew its fist back—low this time, as though to uppercut an opponent in a boxing match. The fist barreled forward. Torval dove, its outbound arc just missing him as he hit the forest floor. As his body rolled, Torval saw the troll’s swinging fist collide hard with the young buck, who’d been sneaking in from behind to try to put Torval down while the brute kept him busy. The young orc flew a good ten feet before landing with a crash in a groaning heap.
The troll made a strange sound—a gasp—and clapped its big hands over its gaping mouth. Torval saw his chance to escape. He scampered forward, right between the big beast’s squat, bowed legs, and scurried away on the far side, eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and the troll.
Torval drank in air. He was panting, a sharp stitch already digging into his side.
But there was no time, not even for a pause. Just a few feet away, the short, fat orc with the battle-ax was almost upon Galen—and the scout was out of arrows. The young woman had unsheathed her sword, but the blade was narrow and elegant. It wouldn’t hold up to the heavy blade on that orc’s ax.
Torval shot forward and threw himself onto the short, fat orc. For an instant their bodies entangled, the stink of the beast filling Torval’s nostrils and making him gag audibly. The gambit worked, though: Torval had built up enough momentum to send the stocky bastard reeling sideward. Down the orc went, its ax clattering from its thick, knotty fingers. Torval landed atop the huffer. Before his adversary could regain his senses, Torval rose up above the orc, straddling it, and raised his maul for a merciless strike.
That’s when something strong seized him. Torval felt crushing force around his torso, and his feet left the ground, the whole world falling away. For a moment the woodland loam filled his vision—there the downed orc; nearby Galen and Tuvera—then he was turned, and his vista changed. Now there were only sun-kissed treetops, a broad dome of bright blue sky, and the broad, flat face of the troll. The creature had snatched Torval up in one hand, like an oversize doll, but as it drew him close to its face, its other hand fell upon him, and now Torval was locked in its viselike grip. It would be nothing—a minor expenditure of force—for the hulking brute to simply press its big hands together and crush Torval like an unwanted pest.
But the troll didn’t do that. Instead it held him high, staring right into his face, its own green, wide-set eyes studying Torval intently. Its mouth was curled into a frowning snarl, but its eyes bespoke something else . . . something less impulsive. Was that curiosity?
Torval truly didn’t care. Staring into the beast’s face, he opened his mouth and sounded a defiant dwarven battle cry. He followed that barbaric yawp with a hard strike from his maul, right between the troll’s eyes.
The troll shrank from the blow. Its brow furrowed.
The maul strike hadn’t damaged the creature, but it had clearly hurt it.
The troll roared.
Just as Torval prepared himself to strike once more—even if the beast crushed him in the next instant—another sound reached his ears. It wasn’t the troll’s roar, but something clearer . . . more acute.
Orders.
“Swu tushtathro!”
The troll swallowed its roar.
Every orc in the clearing froze.
Torval, still held in the troll’s grip, craned his neck about, looking for who had shouted those orders.
There, standing at the tree line just over Torval’s left shoulder, a broad-shouldered orc male, surveying the battleground with bright, blazing eyes and a toothy scowl. Its head was bald save for a topknot woven into three thick braids that swung easily behind it, and it wore a well-wrought suit of armor plates over banded leather and chain mail. Its left hand and forearm were covered by a bit of orcish smithery that Torval had seen only once or twice before: a hybrid between a gauntlet and a buckler, favored by some orcish warriors because it allowed one to deflect heavy weapons without the cumbersome weight of a full-size shield. In its right hand it held a curved broadsword, fearsome in its weight and inelegance.
This had to be the leader.
“Mu obuwathro,” the chieftain barked.
Torval knew those words. We go.
Then, after another sneering appraisal of the enemies before them, the chieftain spoke again: “Nadju nuzhwathwar.”
That was a phrase unfamiliar to Torval . . . but he didn’t like the sound of it.
The orc chieftain’s orders were obeyed at once. The orcs in the clearing all withdrew in haste, never taking their eyes off their enemies or turning their backs to them, but clearly raising their weapons and holding them aloft—the very opposite of a threat—as they retreated.
The troll’s eyes swung from its master to Torval. Its look of fury had evaporated. It now looked like a child being called home, wishing it could still play, if only a little while longer. With a low, throaty groan, the troll dropped Torval, turned, and lumbered away through the trees. Torval hit the ground hard. By the time he’d managed to get himself upright again, the orcs, the troll, even the goblin sniper were all gone.
Tuvera, Galen, and Wallenbrand slowly gathered around him, scanning the tree line and the now-empty forest around them, all wearing similar looks of shock and confusion.
“What happened?” Tuvera asked, her whispered words betraying her disbelief.
“They had us,” Wallenbrand said. “Had us dead to rights.”
“Aye, that,” Galen said. “One minute, we were surrounded. The next, they all stopped. The chief gave his orders and off they went.”
We go. Torval blinked, staring again at the empty forest now surrounding them. No. That couldn’t be. Orcs didn’t engage and then leave off like that. It was unheard of!
“That can’t be,” Torval said, almost to himself.
“Torval,” Galen said, “you took a hard knock. Are you squared?”
“I’m fine,” Torval snapped impatiently. “Just . . . addled.”
“I think,” Wallenbrand said, “our time’s been spent. We should head back.”
“No,” Torval said, but he wasn’t even sure he meant it. His head was still swimming. He was still staring into the brush and woodland around them, all but willing the orcs to return. “Rem’s still out there.”
“And so are those orcs,” Tuvera said softly. “This time, they decided we weren’t worth the effort. We might not be that lucky if we meet them again.”
Torval watched. Waited. The woods were silent but for the song of birds and the soft stirring of breezes in the pine boughs.
“Lucky,” he said. “Sure.”
Something was amiss here, bent and twisted and out of joint. Torval wished he could make sense of it, but still, his thumped head made clear thought all but impossible.
I want my friend, he thought miserably as he searched the high grass and weeds for his fallen maul. He found it readily. I need my friend.
That thought haunted him—hounded him—all the way back to camp.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They came for the two of them around midday, when the sun was highest. The group that collected them for the trial was almost identical to the one that had escorted them to the makeshift jail the night before, led by a towering, broad-shouldered bruiser named Orhund. Accompanying him was the bald fellow with the matching gold earrings—Dedrik Firebow—and a pair of jostling, uncivilized-looking brothers who (Korin had informed her) were twins, though not identical—Zayber and Lyme.
Tzimena noted that Korin—who’d exhausted every mode of conversation and bargaining with his jailers the night before—now looked too wounded to even bother treating with them. He offered no quips, no jests, no remembrances of shared good times or stolen rewards now, opting instead for sullen silence as they opened his cage, urged him out, then tied his hands with a series of complex knots ending in a cord that looped around his throat. When Korin was secure, they opened Tzimena’s cage and helped her out. They didn’t bother tying her up. The fact that there were no bonds indicated they probably didn’t see Tzimena as a flight risk—too posh, too weak, or too clumsy to run away from them—and this vaguely insulted her.
From the cave they were led down the hillside to the open ravine where the primary camp stood. The cookfires were low and smoldering under the afternoon sun.
It looked as though the entire encampment had been gathered: men and women, children and the elderly, a company of about forty in all, if Tzimena’s estimations were correct. Sitting at one end of the group, on an old chair—a lovely, well-carved antique that looked rather out of place here, in the middle of the woods—was the woman Tymon. An empty chair sat on either side of her. The hard, sour look on her face made it clear that she had no relish for the business that was about to be attended to.
Tzimena and Korin were ushered into the midst of the gathering. Another chair—this one far more simple and rustic than that which Tymon sat on—was produced for Tzimena, and she was made to sit. Korin stood, Zayber and Lyme on either side of him. Orhund and Dedrik wended separate paths through the crowd to the empty chairs flanking Tymon and took seats of their own. Finally the old man with the withered hand slung against his chest—Holgur—turned and surveyed everyone present.
“We now bring one of our own to trial to face charges of reckless endangerment, unbridled lust, and the unintentional but negligent deaths of his fellows. He who stands accused is Korin Lyr, called the Red Raven, and he is our leader.”
A murmur ran through the crowd, a punctuation of some sort to Holgur’s opening statement and invocation.
“Received,” they all said in unison.
Formal call and response; clearly this was not the first time one of their own had been put on trial.
“Our brother shall now be tried and judged by his peers. If he is found guilty of his crimes, he faces one of the three allowed punishments: permanent marking, exile, or death.”
“Received,” they all said again.
Permanent marking, exile, or death. Tzimena idly wondered which of those she might prefer if this were her trial and not his.
She studied Korin: shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, mouth turned down in a sullen frown. All the bravado he’d displayed last night, when they were led to their prison, seemed to have left him . . .
“Don’t be a fool, Orhund,” Korin had said as they were marched up the rocky slope toward the Devils’ caves. “You’ve prospered under me, don’t try to deny it!”
“Won’t,” Orhund said.
“Tymon’s just having a bit of a piss,” Korin offered, as if the two men were sharing a private joke. “Let’s let her calm down, then you can suggest she come to her senses and set me free.”
“Nope,” Orhund said.
Korin tried very hard with that one, to no avail.
Desperate for some reprieve, he next t
urned to Zayber and Lyme for comfort.
“Come now, boys,” Korin said. “Haven’t we had good times? Wasn’t I like a father to you? Brought you through your youth to strong manhood?”
“Like a father,” Zayber said.
“But not a father,” Lyme finished.
“Still and all,” Zayber added, “we’re most appreciative. Don’t think us ingrates.”
“Right, exactly,” Lyme said hastily. “This has nothing to do with gratitude or good times shared, Raven, sir—it’s just a shifting of priorities.”
“Shifting priorities?” Korin had asked incredulously.
“Aye, that,” Lyme continued. “In your absence, there was a great deal of conversating—”
“—And debating,” Zayber said.
“Debating, conversating, and argumentation, that is,” Lyme finished. “To wit, at issue: your leadership, and the relative value of your decision-making skills, especially insofar as your relations with the city of Erald and its administration goes.”
“And women,” Zayber said. “Don’t forget the women.”
“There are those, as well,” Lyme said agreeably.
“The women?” Korin asked. Tzimena heard the combination of panic and feigned innocence in his voice. She wasn’t fooled.
“Shut up, the both of you,” Orhund grumbled.
They were inside the cave, having moved through its lowceilinged entryway into the main cavern beyond. Light came from torches, lamps, and candles placed all about the great, open space, and there were a dozen or so people moving about, seeing to one task or another, or simply lounging on boulders to chat. A large body of water dominated the far side of the cavern, rippling lightly in the dim, diffuse light. They remained close to the right-hand wall of the chamber, however, angling toward a set of natural stone stairs up ahead that rose into a low, dark side passage.
“Dedrik, please,” Korin had said then. “Can you please, please talk sense to this lot? To Tymon?”
