by Joel Babbitt
Facing the last of the orcs, one whose drink-sodden eyes had only begun to clear as he stumbled from the large stone throne that sat on a filthy dais at one end of the chamber, with all the strength the magical Bracers of Kale gave him Durik plunged his sword up into the orc’s stomach. With a grunt, the large beast fell over, alternately vomiting and whimpering. Taking pity on the creature, Durik slit its throat then turned around to survey the scene.
Krebbekar was cradling Morigar’s head in his lap, trying to rouse his unconscious leader. Troka’s left thigh had been laid open between his new shin guards and the skirts of his scale mail shirt by an orc’s wild swing. He sat grimacing with pain as he tried to staunch the flow of blood. Both Gormanor and Lemmekor had deep cuts. Gormanor’s right arm hung useless, the muscle between his neck and shoulder having been all but severed. Lemmekor had faired better, receiving a deep slash across one arm. For those that were in it, the armor had spared the company several wounds, and for that they were grateful.
Keryak had had enough presence of mind to call for their healer. Soon Myaliae came shuffling into the room and within moments she was administering the elixirs that were the hallmarks and tools of her trade. Smoke wisped from wounds, accompanied by the cries of those she administered to. The thick red liquid that brought almost instantaneous healing was then administered, accompanied by words of power. In this way it was not long before the grievous wounds given them by the orcs were healed.
While Myaliae was administering to the wounded, assisted by Keryak and Ardan, Manebrow and Arbelk had been tying the hands and feet of the kobold mercenaries who lay passed out from the drink. As Myaliae finished with the last of the warriors, Durik walked over to where Krebbekar sat. Morigar was just beginning to stir, and Krebbekar was helping him sit up.
“What happened?” Durik whispered.
“Fell and cracked his head on the table,” Krebbekar replied.
Morigar had heard them and quickly retorted. “It was that orc, not the table. He backhanded me.” The effort of his emphatic response caused him to double over, holding his head in his hands to fight off a splitting headache.
Durik smirked. Krebbekar smiled apologetically. Durik stood and caught Manebrow’s eye. Seeing he was wanted, Manebrow came to his leader’s side.
“What shall we do with the orc’s females and whelps?” Durik asked his second.
Manebrow’s signature furry eyebrows raised in surprise. “I’d quite forgotten about them,” he admitted. “I’d imagine they must have some idea of what’s going on by now. We certainly made enough noise.”
“We haven’t seen any sign of them, though,” Durik countered.
Manebrow shook his head. “They’re skulking down these halls somewhere, I’d imagine. We should round them up and make sure they don’t try to strip this place clean, then leave by some backdoor.”
“The slaves as well,” Durik said. “We should gather them all into this chamber where we can figure out what to do with them.”
Manebrow nodded. “Right. I’ll ask Krebbekar to prepare the chamber, and I’ll spread our teams out to collect up them up.”
Durik nodded, looking down at his feet. “We can’t stay here long,” he said in a low voice.
“Why not? What has the stone shone you?” Manebrow asked.
“It’s not what the stone has shone me, but rather what it confirmed.”
Manebrow looked at him quizzically. “What this?”
Durik had been keeping this pain to himself for some time, but now that they had the stone, it was the right time to break the news to his second. “Remember when Lady Karaba pulled me aside, just as we were preparing to leave the Krall Gen yesterday?”
Manebrow pursed his lips. His reply was completely deadpan. “This is going to be another ‘surprise’ isn’t it?”
Durik nodded his head.
“And by the look of it, not a good one.”
Durik nodded his head again.
“Well, out with it then, sire. Bad news doesn’t get better with time.”
“Khee-lar Shadow Hand has overthrown our gen,” Durik whispered.
Manebrow was completely stunned. “What… how… but…”
Durik pressed forward. “Using the stone, I saw your family. Ki and your three sons are fine. They look… stressed, but they’re alright.”
Manebrow’s worries eased ever so slightly. “But what about the rest of our families, parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts? What’s going on in our gen?”
Durik held his hand up to calm Manebrow’s rising voice. “I don’t have all the answers right now, but I do know that there has been a lot of chaos back in our gen and many have died. Many others have been thrown in prison, including Khazak Mail Fist. Lord Karthan and many of our most loyal fellow warriors are holed up with him in a wooden palisade just north of our gen’s home caves.”
Manebrow staggered back as if from a physical blow. Durik grabbed his shoulder. “I chose to not share this with you… and the company, until we had gotten the stone. I hope you understand, the Kale Stone is our best hope to end the bloodshed among our brothers.”
Manebrow nodded his head, gathering his wits. “We’d have been terribly distracted, and that wouldn’t have been good for anyone… except our enemies. Sire,” he continued, “let me continue with the plan for a while, will you? I’d like to have the prisoners and slaves dealt with before we tell the company. They’ll want to head out immediately, and we can’t just leave this chaos in our wake. It would come back to bite us if we did.”
Durik gave his consent and, gathering the Kale Gen warriors into their teams, Manebrow led the company out of the great hall in the direction of the most orc stench, leaving Durik behind to search in the stone for answers to the flood of questions that would soon come from his warriors.
Manebrow was never one to even consider killing females and young, but he had never had to face female orcs or their whelps before. He’d faced several of their warriors and knew their ferocity, but he hadn’t known the fury of their females before this day.
Standing among the bodies of the majority of the orc females and their whelps, he couldn’t help but wonder at the senselessness of it all. From the moment he’d entered the wing of the outpost that served as the living quarters for the orcs they’d come at his company with a relentless fury, wielding knives, axes, stones, or with bare hands. It was as if the kobolds’ appearance had sparked some inner arrogance, and even their pig-faced whelps had joined in the attempt to destroy the much shorter kobold warriors.
All of the kobolds had several bruises, and some of them even had gashes from the orcs’ rusty knives, but in the end the furious assault had been broken and the last few had run in the face of the kobolds’ superior discipline and marshal training. Even now three adult females and six smaller whelps cowered in a corner of this common chamber, rounded up by Manebrow’s warriors after they broke and ran.
“No wonder their warriors are so brutal. A culture that makes mothers like these…” he shook his head. “Life must be miserable from day one.”
Keryak stood leaning on his metal spear, flexing fingers that had suffered a rather nasty bite. “Not what I’d describe as cute and cuddly, that’s for sure,” he replied.
“Ardan!” Manebrow called across the chamber as he saw the first group of domestic slaves begin to appear from the living quarters, the huddled group of kobolds looking around tentatively at what they hoped were their saviors. “Ardan, your team will bind the orc prisoners and take them and the slaves to the feasting hall. I’ll take Gorgon and his team through the rest of the outpost and collect up any stragglers.”
Turning his attention to the kobold slaves, he motioned for them to come forward. By the dark hue of their scales they were almost all of northern gen descent, though a couple of the males had more sharply pointed ears, shorter snouts, lighter scales, and thicker tails than the others, showing a heritage that Manebrow wasn’t familiar with. He doubted any of them spoke prop
er Sorcerer’s Tongue.
“Do any of you speak The Sorcerer’s Tongue?” he asked. From the middle of the group both of the strange looking kobolds raised their hands.
“I d… I mean we do,” he said, his accent smooth and exotic, with an almost lilting tone to it.
“Where are you from?” Manebrow asked, a frown creasing his features. The other Kale Gen warriors were all equally interested in the exotic sounding kobold.
“My brother and I, we are from far over the mountains to the east and south of here. We were captured by the Bloodhand Orc Tribe while traveling north of here.”
The smooth tone of their voices, and the subtle differences in pronunciation of their words were intriguing. Manebrow decided he’d have to find out much more about these kobolds when time permitted. For now, however, he needed to clean out the rest of the outpost.
“Right, then. Can you speak with these others from the northern gen?” Manebrow asked.
“Yes,” the exotic kobold answered simply.
“Then please tell them that they need to follow my warriors. We will be collecting up all the slaves, orcs, and mercenaries and bringing them to the feast hall.”
“My lord, what are we to tell them of their… of our fate?”
Manebrow didn’t skip a beat. “Tell them that they are all free… but there is an orc horde out there that we need to make sure doesn’t get wind of what happened here, so we’re going to have to ask them to stay here in the outpost until that danger passes.”
A few of the northern gen kobolds who spoke a bit more Sorcerer’s Tongue than the rest began to get excited. Soon all of them were excited as the exotic kobold translated for them. Their excitement brought several more slaves out of hiding from the living quarters. Several questions came forward from the growing group of former slaves.
“They want to know if you will kill the rest of the orcs.”
Manebrow could see the excitement of the former slaves, and now he could see that it was beginning to turn to bloodlust for their former masters.
“No. They have surrendered. They will eventually be freed, once the horde has gone its way. Until then, they are not to be harmed.” Manebrow could see that the answer wasn’t pleasing to the former slaves, and several of them looked like they wanted to take matters into their own hands.
“Tell them that my warriors will kill anyone who decides to disobey this order,” Manebrow added. If honor wouldn’t motivate them, perhaps fear would.
Durik stood surveying the scene. In one corner of the great hall the last few orcs, females and whelps all, sat huddled in desperation. Though Durik didn’t understand it, the orcs hadn’t believed them when he’d had Manatos, the exotic kobold from the east, explain to them that they weren’t going to kill them. Even now Manatos was trying to calm them down while his brother, Manarius, translated Manebrow’s assurances to the crowd of slaves from the northern gens that occupied the entire middle portion of the hall.
In the far corner of the hall, opposite the orcs, Arbelk and Troka stood guarding the remaining mercenaries who lay strewn around the garbage and rubble in the corner, stacked on top of each other like so many fish, groaning and vomiting all over each other in turn. The scent of their spewed-up revelry did nothing to calm or quiet the orcs or former slaves in the room.
Finishing up a silent count in his head, Durik thought he had fifty individuals, more or less, between the freed slaves, the mercenaries, and the orcs. As if to accentuate the mess, and add further to the confusion, Tohr and Kahn arrived with Mahtu, the mercenary leader, and his five remaining mercenaries that the company had captured at Demon’s Bridge. With no great effort, the six dejected mercenaries were pushed unceremoniously onto the pile of semi-conscious revelers who were their companions, causing more groaning and vomiting.
“Sire,” Gorgon asked Durik, breaking him out of his thoughts, “How are we going to ensure that all of these don’t escape and warn the approaching horde? Surely we can’t leave any of our warriors here?”
Seated on the steps of the dais, Morigar and the rest of the Krall Gen team sat waiting.
Durik breathed deeply, despite the stench, “I believe it’s time to tell everyone what’s going on back in our home gen.” He turned to Morigar and Krebbekar. “I have some very troubling news for the members of my gen. Will you have your team watch over the prisoners while I take my company into the other room to tell them?”
Morigar stood up with an unusual amount of interest. “What’s happened at your gen?”
Looking around to ensure that all of his warriors were otherwise engaged, Durik spoke in a low voice to the two Krall Gen leaders. “Khee-lar Shadow Hand, one of our warrior group leaders, has overthrown Lord Karthan. Lord Karthan and several who are loyal to him have fled to an enclosure north of our home caverns. You can see how distracting this news will be to them?”
Wide-eyed, Morigar nodded his understanding. Krebbekar chewed on his lip.
“This is grim news indeed,” Krebbekar said.
“Yes,” Durik agreed. “It’s because of that that I don’t want to tell them in front of the prisoners and the northern gen kobolds.”
Morigar’s eyes narrowed, and Durik wondered what he was thinking. He assumed it couldn’t be anything good.
“I’d imagine that you will want to take your company to join him then. So if you need us to, my team and I can stay behind and take care of the outpost,” Morigar volunteered unexpectedly. Krebbekar looked suspiciously at his young leader.
Durik looked at him with both caution and tentative gratitude. “Why would you do that?” he asked incredulously.
“It’s simple,” Morigar’s detached tone only made Durik and Krebbekar more suspicious. “You and yours need to get back to your gen. I and mine, on the other hand, have a charge to bring the head of the orc chieftain back to my father. I see here a number of mercenaries, and a number of other northern gen kobolds as well. Using the riches my father gave me, I will leave Gormanor and Lemmekor here and hire these mercenaries that we’ve captured to be their muscle. I will give them the responsibility of keeping the orcs and the others here for a few days, and I’ll have some of the northern gen kobolds take Krebbekar and I to their lords so I can hire many more. Though I’ll wait until the orc horde has gone into the southern valley before descending the Chop, of course.”
“What will you do with all these mercenaries you plan to hire?” Durik asked cautiously.
“Yes, what?!” Krebbekar asked with much more skepticism.
“Why, I will lead them against the orc horde, of course. What did you think I would do with them?” Morigar asked innocently.
Durik knew as well as the rest of them what charge Lord Krall had given his son, but knowing how resistant Morigar had been to helping at all so far, it was hard for him to believe that Morigar was genuine in his intentions. Still, he knew he could not ask any of his warriors to remain behind to watch over the prisoners, not when their homes and families were in danger.
“Would you mind sending a messenger to my father telling him about the orcs, when you get to Lord Karthan?”
Durik slowly began to nod his head, though he didn’t look happy. “Alright, then. I see no other option.”
Krebbekar stood there mute.
The meeting of the members of Durik’s Company occurred out in the entrance cavern for the outpost, where Durik had seated them in a semi-circle around him. Though he had many more questions than answers, Durik did his best to provide what answers he could to the worried members of his company.
Had he seen Lord Karthan, and if so who was with him? Yes, and there were many; his uncle Drok, Keryak’s father Kodar, and Gorgon’s father Goryon were among them, though he’d not had time yet to scry through the huddle of lean-tos where the females and whelps of the loyalists were encamped, and he’d not noticed anyone else’s parents among them.
Who had he been able to see among those who stayed behind in their home caverns? Khee-lar sat on Lord Karth
an’s throne, and several former elite warriors were in charge of the warrior groups mostly. He’d seen Manebrow’s family, and that they were safe. The only other family that he’d seen was Arbelk’s; apparently with so many children his father had decided to stay rather than risk fleeing. Durik had seen Arbelk’s father coming home from harvesting the fungus that grew in the deeper, moister places of the gen’s home caverns, a sack of the stuff perched on his shoulder. Finally, he’d also seen a place of burial outside the entrance to their home caverns; a mass grave where many had already been buried.
What about my family? Almost all of them had asked this question. Durik had no more answers there. The caverns were large and no one was in their homes when he scried. Some of the homes looked quickly deserted, which could mean that they were among the loyalists. He just didn’t know, and he could see that the unknown of it all was tearing his people apart.
Finally, the group was quiet and the time felt right to speak. As he spoke the time quickly ripened to take action.
“My dear friends, brothers from my beloved gen, for Kale we all are,” he began, though Myaliae was there as well. “I suffer with you. Our home has been stolen from us. I have seen much blood on the floor of our gen’s council chamber. I watched, horrified, as Khee-lar and his evil companions slew a noble supporter of Lord Karthan and made his family slaves to the new Deep Guard leader. I have seen rooms full of treasures and goods robbed from those who fell in battle against his evil, or who he thought might be less than loyal to his reign, leaving many widows and orphans without anything or anyone to sustain them. I have seen lifemates torn from the bosoms of their warriors, to become a harem to this new evil lord. Finally, I have seen the look of evil in the eyes of those whose swords uphold Khee-lar as they go about doing his evil deeds.
“By his actions, Khee-lar Shadow Hand shows his true character. He is a master of evil and nothing more. Today I condemn his actions!” There was a muted, but determined muttering of agreement from the group.
