And so it went for another several days. Half of each spent running the kingdom, then a half day of potion making, alternating with a half day of blacksmithing. Dalia arrived with the better quality herbs, and Max began cranking out uncommon quality healing potions. Oakstone spent half a day showing Max the secret of making dwarven steel, then told him to practice it for a week, making knives, simple swords, whatever struck his fancy. At the end of that week, Oakstone would return with Dylan’s dragonscale chest piece, and examine Max’s work.
When the ninth day since they’d left the dworcs’ village arrived, Max couldn’t justify making the trip himself. There were too many other things happening within Stormhaven for him to be out of touch for several days. Instead he sent Dalia and Smitty out to try and convince the Blooded to join him. They went mounted, taking the portal to the outpost first, which enabled them to ride through the first valley and into the dworc territory in less than a day. Max hoped to have see them back a day or two later, with good news.
In the meantime, he needed to check on the mine, temple, and way station. Or’gral and his thousand orc defectors had arrived at the mine days earlier. Max took the portal to the temple, where he found a whole herd of dwarves puttering around, most of them pestering Glitterspindle with questions. Grabbing one of the engineers, he asked, “How goes the secret tunnel from the mine?”
“What” The distracted engineer fiddled with a large instrument he’d been trying to use to measure the metal gnome’s head. “Oh, King Max! Aye, the tunnel be underway. Another week or so, and it’ll be complete. Them orcs ye sent been helpin’ us dig, three full shifts, nonstop. It’d take another week at least without their help.”
Max released the dwarf to go back to torturing the mechamage, leaving the temple and jogging through the woods until he reached the mine. He took a moment to appreciate the new stone wall surrounding the mine complex. Thirty feet high and as smooth as ice on the outside. Several dozen orcs with bows walked the ramparts at the top, a few of them saluted Max as he jogged past them toward the gate. Walking inside, he found Gr’tok speaking with Or’gral and several other orcs. As he approached, he noticed rows of tents set up within the open space inside the wall. Orc families had small fires built in front of every third tent, orc children helping with chores or running about at play.
“King Max!” Gr’tok raised a fist to chest in salute, followed immediately by the other orcs standing with him. “We were just discussing logistics.”
“For the relocation to the city?”
“Yes, in part.” Or’gral replied. “Though the majority of us do not wish to reside in the city. There is much work to be done here, and we can be of help. The mine, the farms, and the repairs to the temple, we can assist you with all of them. And the warriors among us are happy to help defend these places against that coward, An’zalor.”
Max looked at the small tent city. “And where will we house everyone? You can’t live in tents for long.”
We will build a pair of barracks buildings at the way station, after we have extended the wall there to accommodate them. Some will live here temporarily, inside the mine, in the side chambers off the main shaft. Others will live in the temple, once we have repaired the roof. And some three hundred of us, mostly crafters and merchants, will return with you and Gr’tok to Stormhaven city. We have been working with the dwarven engineers on expansion plans. We won’t just be building housing for the thousand who came with me, but for thousands more who wait to join us.”
Gr’tok added, “The secret tunnel is nearly complete. Our people have been laboring to get it done as quickly as possible, with the help of the dwarves, of course. Our plan is to turn the way station into a fortified town that can hold out against an attack by at least a medium sized force of An’zalor’s warriors. We need only hold them long enough for reinforcements to arrive through the portal and smash them against our walls. Should our scouts report the approach of a larger force than we can handle, we can evacuate to the mine. And, if necessary, through the mine to the portal at the temple.”
Max shook his head. “You guys decided this all on your own?”
“Nothing is decided, King Max.” Gr’tok bowed his head. “We have simply made plans, which we are presenting to you for approval. If you disapprove of any aspect, we will make other plans.”
Max chuckled. As a soldier on Earth, he had done the same to several officers above him. They were left with the option to either approve his plans, or take the time to come up with a better one. And the plans the orcs were making were already in line with his own, just on a much faster timeline. But with a thousand eager new citizens that needed housing and feeding, as well as protecting, he had no choice but to agree. “Sounds good to me! Well done, gentlemen.” Max thought about his other potential new recruits, and asked questions.
“Have any of you spotted a bunch of minotaurs roaming around the forest or the fields?” When several of the orcs nodded in the affirmative, he followed up with, “Do you know where they are now? And whether they’ve chosen a location?”
“They are at the way station.” Or’gral replied. “Or rather, they were this morning. I believe they plan to join us in building it up into a town.”
“Wonderful! Now, I have a serious question for all of you, and I want you to be honest with your answers. Have you heard of the Blooded clan?”
Gr’tok and a few of the older orcs present nodded their heads. The others just gave Max blank stares. Gr’tok answered, “The dworcs, the mixed breeds. Half orc, half dwarf. Unfortunate souls who are outcast from both societies.”
“Maybe not anymore.” Max shook his head. “I ran into them several days back, and have been trying to convince them to join us as well. But I need to know… will your people have a problem with that?”
Or’gral stepped forward and stood next to Max, his gaze meeting those of every orc present one at a time. As he stared at them, he spoke. “None here will object to their presence, Majesty. Their heritage is no fault of their own, and we do not hold it against them. If anything, it is our own feelings of shame, the shame of our ancestors who dishonorably assaulted dwarven prisoners, that gives us discomfort in their presence.”
Max watched as orc after orc nodded their agreement. Some more readily than others, but it was unanimous, all the same. Max assumed this gathering to be the leaders of the larger group, and would have to depend on them to enforce this attitude.
“Thank you, Or’gral, and all of you. The dworcs are good people, who have been surviving, but not thriving, mostly due to their isolation. I’d like to help them reintegrate into both dwarven and orc society. With your help, that task will be easier to accomplish.”
“Speaking of making tasks easier…” Or’gral produced several scrolls from his inventory and handed them to Max. “One of the orcs I convinced to come with me was the old War Chief’s enchanter. These are scrolls of communication. They are simple devices, allowing a link to be established for up to five minutes. They transmit voices only, but are quite useful. With these, we can report any attacks to you immediately, and you can let us know when reinforcements are arriving, so that we may coordinate our counterattacks.”
Max remembered looting a few of these scrolls in the orc scout camp he and the dwarves had wiped out. But he didn’t think this was the best time or place to mention that. “They would indeed be useful, thank you. Tell me, does this enchanter know of other communication enchantments?”
“He is a Master Enchanter, and quite old.” Or’gral shrugged. “We can certainly ask him.”
Max was constantly surprised by the orcs in general. Earth’s fiction had mostly portrayed them as savage brutes with limited intelligence and crude weapons, living for battle and slaughter. The orcs he’d observed in their city, and since then, were just the same as humans or dwarves. They had their share of brutes, of course, An’zalor being a prime example. But they had crafters, shopkeepers and farmers, stooped elders who sat with toddlers on their knee
s telling fairy tales. He was constantly telling folks on this world that they needed to accept other races, at least within the confines of Stormhaven. It was time he worked on ignoring his own preconceptions as well.
*****
Lagrass looked out from the alley where he’d hidden behind a pile of broken crates and trash. Someone from the tavern he was leaning against had tossed a bucket of rotted vegetables and food scraps onto the heap, and the sun had ripened it so that the stench was nearly unbearable. But until the city guards moved on, he dared not move. Twice they’d walked by the mouth of the alley already, stopping to peer into the shadows a moment before moving on. The smell discouraged them from investigating more closely, so he figured he should be grateful for that.
Another pair of guards appeared, their shadows stretching down the alley ahead of them. “Maybe he’s down there.” One of them suggested.
The other sniffed, shook his head. “Feel free to go check. Whatever that is, I don’t want to be cleaning it off my boots all night. I’ve got a date with Lucinda after our shift.”
“You do not.” The second guard peered down the alley, leaning forward as if tempted to step in. “Lucinda wouldn’t give you the time of day if you were covered in gold and suddenly declared the old king’s heir!”
His partner snorted. “Shows what you know. Lucinda has taken a liking to me. She says I’m funny.”
“Funny looking, maybe. Take heed my friend. That woman will empty your pockets and leave you crying in that refuse heap over there.” He pointed directly at Lagrass, making the man cringe. He held his breath as the banter continued, the two guards turning and moving on down the street. When he could no longer hear the voices, he let the breath out. Which meant he needed to inhale that horrible stench again.
After ten minutes, when no more guards appeared, he extricated himself from the rubbish and did his best to wipe off the various bits that had stuck to his clothes, which were hopelessly stained with this world’s equivalent of dumpster juice. The seat of his pants was soaked through, and even as he distanced himself from his hiding spot, the wind at his back told him the stench was going to follow him wherever he went.
Reaching the end of the alley farthest from the street, he faced a ten foot high brick wall that stretched from building to building and effectively blocked the alley. Lagrass took a few steps back, then rushed forward and leapt as high as he could, gripping the top of the wall with his fingers and pulling himself upward. Having not eaten for two days, he was weaker than he’d like, and barely made the climb. Once atop the wall, he sat there panting for a few minutes, reflecting on his time in this world, and how he’d gotten here.
He’d died on earth. Or, more accurately, been killed. Lagrass had been sitting in his office, gloating over the demise of Storm and his unit. It was a simple matter of passing along some unconfirmed and, to him, blatantly false intel. He’d known it was a trap, the clumsy attempt at a fake leak apparent from the first moment he’d seen it. But he was sick of Storm and his squad, the so-called elite operators. Always swaggering around their operating base, thinking they were better than everyone.
Better than Lagrass himself.
They never showed him any respect. He was just some desk jockey to them, not worth inviting for a drink after a successful mission. He didn’t think Storm even knew his name. So he’d sent them into an ambush, a literal meat grinder, and done his best not to smile in front of the others as they listened to the massacre on the comms. Good riddance.
He was smiling to himself, remembering that moment as he signed the after action report, when his door was kicked open. A haggard and bloody operator in torn gear staggered into the room, growling. “Lagrass you piece of shit!” Behind him in the hallway there was shouting, and two figures appeared in the doorway, reaching for the man he now recognized as corporal Blake. Lagrass froze, his mind taking a few seconds to absorb the fact that a dead man was stomping toward him. “You killed us, you sonofabitch. Killed us all. I know what you did, traitor!”
Before Lagrass could even open his mouth, Blake raised a .45 and shot him in the gut. The loud retort in the small room made him jump, then the searing pain in his belly made him scream. There was another report, then another, and pain blossomed in his groin, then knee. His hands already moving to his belly wound, he tried to look down to assess his injuries, but he head was pushed back violently, slamming into the back of his chair as a final round slammed into his face. He felt his teeth shatter along with his jaw, his mind going into overload from the pain of his multiple wounds before everything went black.
He didn’t see Blake drop his weapon, his shrapnel-ridden arm and hand too weak to hold it any longer. Nor did he see the two soldiers behind Blake grab him as his legs gave out. Lagrass died a moment later in his cushioned leather office chair, followed less than a minute later by Blake, the last man of Storm’s massacred unit, who bled out from his multiple wounds on the hallway floor, even as two medics tried to save him.
The next thing Lagrass knew, a voice was speaking to him. A male voice that echoed with power. He couldn’t see anything, or feel the pain of his wounds, for which he was thankful.
“Do you wish to live?” The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once.
“I’m hurt. Badly hurt. My face…” Lagrass could recall being shot in the face, and the groin. Even if a woman would talk to a disfigured mess like he would be, he suspected the damage to his manhood would negate any interest.
“Your former existence has ended, your body expired. I am offering you a chance to live again. A new life, in a new body.”
“Like, reincarnation? Are you… god?” Lagrass was suddenly terrified. He’d committed uncountable sins, including the recent murders of Storm and his squad.
“I am a god, yes. Though not the one you’re referring to. I have taken note of your actions, of the clever way you disposed of your unsuspecting comrades to gain power and respect. I can make use of one such as yourself. So I offer you a new life, on a new world, where you will serve my purposes. Do you agree?”
Confused and overwhelmed, Lagrass stammered. “W-wait. A new world? What world? Like, Mar or Saturn or something?”
“Which world does not concern you. You have a choice. Perish now, and have your life force absorbed into your Earth, or serve me in a new life. Choose now.”
A coward at heart, Lagrass had no real choice. “I want to live.”
A moment later he found himself in a room filled with grey mist. He blinked his eyes, and a different, female voice echoed through the mist around him. “You must choose a race.” Several boxes appeared in front of him, each a life-sized being of various builds and races.
“This… is like one of those games. The one Storm’s guys were always blathering about.” Not having played more than a few games of this type himself as a kid, he looked at the selection of unfamiliar and beastly looking ogres and orcs, goblins and trolls. The moment his eyes settled on a representation of a human, he seized on it. “Human! I choose to be human!”
The other boxes disappeared, and the human avatar moved front and center. Lagrass had sighed with relief. The voice spoke to him again, telling him that he’d been marked by Loki, and thus would receive a special gift. Then the mist had faded to blackness again, and Lagrass had next awakened in a tavern cellar, surrounded by casks, crates, cobwebs and rats.
Aggressive rats. Almost immediately one of them charged from behind a nearby crate and took a bite out of his ankle! Lagrass shouted in fear and pain, swatting at the rodent with his hand, knocking it away briefly as a red minus three drifted across his field of vision. The rat recovered quickly and charged forward again. Desperate, Lagrass grabbed hold of a broken chair leg and smashed at the wicked little predator as hard and fast as he could. His first blow missed, but the second swing stunned the rat. His next several swings smashed it to a pulp as he growled and shouted at it.
No sooner was the rat dead than he received several notifications on his in
terface. He paused, breathing hard, to read them. One was an experience notification, another was telling him he’d learned a Blunt Weapon skill. He didn’t get to the third, as another rat had emerged from cover to bite him on the ass.
That was how he had entered this new world. Sitting atop the wall, he looked down to see a rat scurrying along the ground below, and spat at it. “Friggin rats. I hate rats.”
Chapter 15
Max toured the mine, then the way station, which had already grown larger than the last time he’d seen it. The orc farmer and his family greeted him happily, inviting him to stay the night in their home, kicking one of the boys out of his room. The farmer’s wife, whose name neither Max nor Red knew, bowed her head to Max when her husband went to take care of something.
“I admit, I was scared when we first agreed to stay here.” She spoke softly. “But the patrols have kept a tight watch on the area between here and An’zalor’s city, and with all these hundreds of people here, the new wall… thank you, Chimera King. We could not have asked for a better new start than this.”
“I’m very happy that it has worked out for you.” Max replied, and meant it. He’d been concerned about their safety as well.
The initial wall was already completed, and crews were digging foundations for a second, much larger wall two hundred yards out from the first. The newly enclosed area would provide enough room not only for housing and some protected fields, but for crafters shops and a tavern or two. A new stable and corral were being constructed, the original one not large enough to accommodate the nearly one hundred ja’kang now housed at the way station. If Max’s people wanted to, they could field a significant mounted force against any attacking foes. Though most of the mounts were used in rotation for the scout patrols.
Max and the others were suspicious that An’zalor had not sent another force. It was true that he’d already lost roughly four hundred and fifty troops to Max in battle, about half of those killed, the others actually joining Max. Another few hundred were among those who had left the city with Max, or defected on their own and joined Stormhaven. So while the war chief was losing resources, Max was gaining. Still, Max would not have guessed that An’zalor would bide his time this long. Gr’Tok and Or’gral were nervous as well, doubling the scout patrols and having them range nearly all the way to the city.
Battleborne Book 2: Wrack and Ruin Page 22
