by Markus Heitz
Gronsha gave an evil grin. So the Groundlings were as helpless in this fog as he was himself.
Carefully he sniffed the air, noting his opponent’s position by the unmistakable smell. He moved off, sword raised in his two hands above his head, ready to strike: he could split the creature in two with a single blow.
“Boïndil?”—he heard the voice of the Groundling querying his approach. A stocky shadowy figure emerged from the fog, and Gronsha launched his attack, sure of his target.
“Aha, so somebody’s listening to me, at least,” said the dwarf, stepping neatly to one side and wielding his own weapon in his turn. The ax-blade slashed into Gronsha’s right buttock. He let out a yell and disappeared into the wall of fog.
This was no way to fight. This was not the type of encounter he enjoyed.
This accursed fog.
He decided to retreat rather than stumble around hoping for a chance hit before one of them managed to strike him again.
The wound on his backside was quickly closing up. The Black Immortality draught that he had been taking would heal him instantaneously, though the cut had been in a sensitive and undignified area. Typical of those devious Groundlings. They would always avoid honorable combat and sneak off and hide in their strongholds and caves.
Gronsha turned and headed back through the thick mist. Behind him he heard the screams of a dying orc, felled by a Groundling. The ghastly sound curdled his blood.
He caught sight of a small figure backing into view through the mist. Without pause for thought he raised his weapon and smashed the blade right down on the enemy’s helmet. Death struck so fast that not a single cry was uttered. Blood sprayed out on all sides.
Gronsha was not yet satisfied. “You scummy rockslime worm. I’ll cut you to ribbons!” He hacked away at the corpse in a blind rage, oblivious to the din. Laughing, he severed the bearded head and booted it off into the fog: this was his way to take revenge. His victim’s helmet and shield he took with him. They would serve him well.
As he lifted the shield the next dwarf rushed up ready to kill. “Here!” the dwarf shouted, ax upraised. “Here he is. This way!”
“Damnable maggot,” croaked Gronsha, taking the blow on his shield. The blade skidded over the edge of the metal, hitting him on the shoulder. The thick layer of lard on his body armor, designed to foil enemy weapons, had failed him this time.
Gronsha sprang back, but his adversaries were attacking from all sides. Running straight ahead he crashed against a rough granite wall that tore at his skin as he slid along it.
His discovery of the wall was no real help. He felt he was going round in circles. The enveloping mist allowed no escape and seemed to be mocking him as it imprisoned him in the swirling darkness. The combat zone for him and the Groundlings must be a cave with many interconnecting tunnels.
His shoulders throbbed and burned. The Black Immortality healed him fast but even so the pain was intense. He attempted a cautious movement of his arm, which obeyed him dutifully. Gronsha would have to rely on that arm because his enemies were still at large.
He could smell their presence despite the hateful damp cold gray vapor that was like a blindfold on his eyes. The further in you ventured, the less you could hear in this fog. Even his own armor had ceased to give off any sound. He was swathed in a cold damp blanket of the stuff.
Those other caves, the ones in the land of Toboribor, Realm of the Orcs to the southwest of Girdlegard, were always warm and dry: you could move about unhampered. This cavern was the exact opposite: cold, eerie and forbidding.
The gray veils swirled about wildly, making him think there were Groundlings on all sides about to attack as he felt his way along the wall searching for an exit. Three times he was fooled by his imagination and stabbed furiously at empty air.
At last Tion and Samusin, the gods of his people, took pity on him and showed him a way out—a black opening in the rock wall.
All at once a Groundling was in his path, jumping out at him from the fog and wielding a deadly ax. “Perish, fiend!”
This time Gronsha was ready for him, parrying the blow and kicking his attacker in the face so that the dwarf lurched back into the wall of mist, spitting blood and teeth. “You shall die first, rock-louse!”
Time to apply some trickery. Gronsha squatted down low, put the battered dwarf helmet on his head, took up the captured shield and altered his voice as he lurched from side to side, gurgling in desperation. “Help! He’s done for me.” He groaned and whimpered. “For the sake of Vraccas, friends, come to my aid!”
“Bendagar? Are you injured?”
“My leg,” moaned Gronsha, battling with the urge to laugh. This was no time for laughter—not yet.
“Hold on, we’re coming,” he heard the Groundling’s comrade call. The dwarf’s outline appeared in the fog. “Mind you keep quiet. There’s another of those snout-faces round here somewhere. He—”
Gronsha did not wait. He thrust the sword tip violently through the chain mail and into the belly of his enemy. “Well, well, Beard-Face, you don’t say?” His laugh was full of malice as he twisted the blade. The dwarf groaned and tried to strike at him but Gronsha fended off the blow, grabbing the ax handle and forcing it out of the weakening grasp of the other. “Bite on your own blade,” he growled, slicing into the bearded face.
The Groundling sank back into the wall of fog. This time forever.
Gronsha leaped over the body and raced into the swirling mist of the tunnels through which he hoped to make his escape.
It was a leap into the unknown and nothing like the sort of exploring he was used to.
He was aware of a feeling of great unease. I am in the Outer Lands, he thought, quaking with fear but unable to name the source of his terror.
In Toboribor there were legends about the mighty territories of the orcs. One place alone was as big as the whole of Girdlegard and could sustain a vast population of orcs—more orcs than there were stars in the heavens.
He thought the myths were exaggerated. But still, there must be orcs in the Outer Lands. Many thousands of solar cycles ago the first and only ever successful raid had started from the north.
Of course it was thanks to his people that the Northern Gateway had been breached. Every orc descendant knew the legend of the glorious orbit that celebrated the victory over the Groundlings. Only orcs had the necessary stamina, strength and courage. Cycle after cycle, the memorable event was honored in Toboribor.
How wonderful, thought Gronsha, to have celebrated the next festival in a conquered dwarf kingdom. And with the severed head of a Groundling to serve as a missile for the shot-put event, the way they used to at the festival commemorating the fall of Girdlegard. The feasts they provided had been enormous; this time he’d certainly have carried off the prize for competitive belching. Instead of enjoying the games, though, there he was, on his own, stuck in the Outer Lands. He had been born in the caves of Toboribor and knew nothing of the land of his forebears. The same as all the orcs in Toboribor.
But it wasn’t just orcs he was hoping to come across; there would be ogres, trolls, älfar and all the other creatures that worshipped the gods Samusin and Tion.
“Those were the days,” he grumbled. Since the defeat of their ally Magus Nôd’onn there was no chance of any more good times for him and Prince Ushnotz, who was wanting to establish a new empire; they were constantly running away from the Red-Bloods, they had no home anymore and the prince was weak and treated them unfairly.
He still didn’t dare to stand up to Ushnotz, to kill him and take over. Others, those with more experience, he was sure, would be getting there first with their plans for a coup. Whoever managed to vanquish the prince would replace him—that was always the way with his people. The best man would take power. So Groshna went on waiting. He was waiting for his chance.
The only good thing about his position was his immortality, granted him by the Black Water. But immortality without power was like a bone with no meat.
Gronsha’s plan was changing, the further he advanced and the more the mist lifted. “Why should I go back and serve Ushnotz at all?” he asked into the empty air, and his words echoed back from the cavern walls. Reflections from the glistening moss gave enough light for his sensitive vision. He could see nearly as well as in bright daylight. His confidence grew. “I’m as good a prince as any.”
Perhaps he would be able to drum up a small band of mercenaries in the Outer Lands and get them to attack the Stone Gate. He and his troopers had managed to inflict substantial damage on the gates before having to retreat; the Groundlings would not be able to secure the gates easily. A few hundred orcs and they’d soon dispense with that puny handful of defenders. He’d have to act quickly and find allies enough to launch an attack before the Groundlings got their repairs underway.
Gronscha grinned. He, the immortal orc, would be the one to take the Groundlings’ stronghold. All he needed were comrades in arms. No point in being choosy. Anything that could hold a weapon would be fine with him. Now he was convinced: it had been Tion’s will that he should go into the Outer Lands.
His eyes picked out a sign on the cave wall. It was a rune, elaborate and strange and revoltingly dwarfish. The shape couldn’t be from the Sharp-Ears.
“Are those confounded bearded boils on this side, too?” cursed Gronsha. He couldn’t work out whether the marks on the stone were recent or had been etched a thousand cycles previously. He would have to be careful.
He carried on, following the tunnel that soon branched into two, and strode along after a moment’s hesitation, taking the passageway that had the slightly warmer air.
Soon the passage fanned out into a dozen corridors. Gronsha was entering a maze.
He marked his chosen path, scratching a large orc rune: two vertical lines with two dots between them. He might need to find his way back. Before long he was faced with the same decision about which direction to take. This happened eight times.
It was deathly quiet.
His footsteps made no sound now; the layer of grease on his armor had melted into the gaps and was lubricating the metal so there was no noise from the plates grating together. You couldn’t even hear a pebble dislodging from the roof, or a drop of water splashing down. In the Outer Lands there was neither sound nor life. Nothing but him and the passageways, sometimes high and wide as barn doors, sometimes as small as a human female.
Fear started to take hold of him.
He began to sweat. He was seeing hundreds of shadows surrounding him, then he thought his own shadow was moving when he was standing still. In no time he was so far gone he’d have welcomed even the sound of an orc’s death scream. At least he’d have been able to hear something.
Finally he broke into a run, not knowing what he was running from or running toward. He was so desperate to get away from the silence, he forgot to mark his way. No matter how tired he was, no matter how much time had passed: nothing else was important.
Then the passage opened up into a cavern.
Gronsha stopped on the threshold, gasping, in his left side a piercing pain each time he drew breath. He reckoned the cave was about forty paces long and over a hundred in height. Great shafts of sunlight, wide as tree trunks, fell through. It looked as if they were columns supporting the roof. The bright light cut through the gloom, tearing pale holes in the darkness of the floor.
He stopped short. Bones… heaps of bones. Orc bones!
Either he had found a burial chamber where cowards’ remains were unceremoniously thrown to rot away, or else these caves were home to some creature that was preying on his people for food.
Gronsha took a few careful steps into the cave, went down on one knee and poked around with the tip of his sword in a pile of bones the light had caught.
The bones did indeed show knife marks. Someone had painstakingly scraped off the flesh. They had broken open the larger bones to get at the marrow. Nobody had touched the skulls. He had the distinct impression that these remains were quite fresh.
He breathed out, stood up and tested the air. Perhaps the Groundlings had been, in all senses of the words, the smaller evil.
He strode on across the cavern, instinctively avoiding the patches of light. On the other side he took the next passageway and followed it, his stomach rumbling. All this running around had made him really hungry.
Gronsha’s trusty nose warned him.
A familiar smell told him that some of his own people were hereabouts, even though he could neither see nor hear them. It was strange that here the whiff of rancid fat from the armor was missing.
Then he saw the firelight at the end of the passage.
Not wanting to get himself shot full of arrows by some over-eager guard, Gronsha did not try to muffle the sound of his approach. “Ho,” he called out, the cave walls echoing and funneling his strong dark voice. “I am an orc. From Toboribor! I need your help, Brothers, against the Groundlings!”
Two large solidly built forms became visible at the end of the passage, blocking out the fire’s light. The vague smell he knew so well was getting stronger, and shadows flew along the cave wall toward him. He could not yet see any details, but it seemed that the orcs from the Outer Lands were no less tall than those from southern Girdlegard.
They approached him, their deadly barbed spear points facing the ground. Gronsha assumed the vicious metal hooks would simply rip off under pressure and stick in the victim’s flesh. He regarded the weapon with respect.
A third shape joined them, hurrying up with a lantern to shine on him.
Soon they were in front of him—he saw to his surprise one of them was a female. Not only did the sight of her, with all those rings in her ears and the unusually delicate nose, excite him, but he wondered what she was doing casting her lot in with these warriors. It wouldn’t happen back in Toboribor. Women should be seeing to the food and the kids. And to the needs of the fighting men, to his own needs, at once, right here.
“Don’t move your hands,” she ordered in her husky voice. The lance point was placed at his throat and forced him over toward the wall. “Stay there. Brother.” The other orcs laughed.
Gronsha studied their armor and the helmets. They really weren’t using the life-saving coating of fat on the metal plates. They’d stand no chance like that in a proper fight. He couldn’t see the point of making your enemy’s job easier. All in all they looked fairly clean. At any rate they were much cleaner than him. Unhealthily clean.
He started to feel envious. That armor indisputably came from an orc forge. But the quality of the metal and handiwork was way above anything that he had ever seen made by Prince Ushnotz’s smiths. Could that be why they were able to dispense with the coating of fat?
“I am Gronsha. Take me to your leader,” he commanded, stretching to his full height. “It is possible that I am being followed. It would be as well for you to watch out.”
The woman looked along the passageway he had come down and then sent the two warriors out to check. “You’re from… where?”
“Toboribor.”
“Toboribor?” She did not even look at him; she was watching what was going on down the passage. “What kind of a name is that?”
“What kind of a name is that?” he grunted indignantly. He was surprised. “It is a mighty orc kingdom, far to the south of Girdlegard.”
Now she did grace him with a glance. The expression in her pink eyes hovered between indifference and disdain. “An orc kingdom? That is good news for once. If it’s in the south, what are you doing in the north?” Her accent was painful for him: too clear and sharp. Arrogant, more like. “So you’re lost?”
“I command the troops of Prince Ushnotz, who rules Toboribor. I am here to look for allies to help us fight the Groundlings…” He bent the truth a little and noted from her face that she did not get his meaning. “You don’t know who the Groundlings are?” It was getting more and more difficult. “Then you are indeed blessed by Tion and Samusin, if y
ou haven’t met this plague of ax monsters,” he snorted. He held his hands at hip level to show their height. “This size without their helmets. We call them Beard-Faces and Rock-Lice and usually—”
“Oh, of course. I know them,” she interrupted. The two orcs she’d sent out to reconnoiter were back and gave the all-clear. Nobody had followed him. “Our names for them are different. It’s not often that one of our Brothers”—she emphasized the word and smiled—“takes the path and comes to Fon Gala.”
“To where?” Gronsha asked.
“Here.”
“Oh, the Outer Lands. That’s what we call it.”
“Welcome.” She widened her smile, baring her teeth and showing her fangs.
Gronsha liked her. He wanted her. When he had captured the stronghold he would take her for his wife and breed many children on her. He bet she’d never had an orc like him. He would break her in and teach her how a woman should behave.
“You may come with me, Gronsha. I’ll take you to our prince. He will be pleased to hear news of Toboribor.” At long last she removed the spear point from his throat and gestured toward the end of the tunnel where the light was coming from. “After you. Brother.” That set the orcs off laughing again.
They reached a large cavern that was part natural, part artificial. A hundred paces wide and two hundred in length, as high as the tallest tower on the Stone Gateway. In the middle a small stream flowed and along its banks black, five-cornered tents had been erected. There were several kinds of smell he noted in the air: food was cooking, and there was beer brewing somewhere. There were coal fires burning in glowing iron braziers.
Gronsha wondered why the normal unmistakable smell of his own people was absent—that heady mix of strength and presence and superiority, that the Red-Bloods said “stank.” The brother and sister orcs from the Outer Lands couldn’t have been here long.
He could not suppress a grin. Guessing at their number, he arrived at a couple of thousand. At least. With a force of that size it would be easy to wipe out the Groundlings.
His companion pointed to the largest black tent. “In there.”
