I quickly disarmed him and crouched at his side, waiting for the stun effect to expire.
“Do you speak my language?” I asked the orc, now terrified and staring at me. Where was that fearsome slaver now? A telltale smell struck my nose. By the looks of things, this steppe warrior had soiled himself in fear.
“Yes!” he said, nodding very quickly.
“Are there any more of your warriors nearby?” I asked while the harn slightly extended his claws, poking the tips into the orc’s chest.
“N-no, there’s nobody in the camp...”
“And which way is the camp?” I asked. But I didn’t have to ask. Gorgie could find it in two shakes.
“O-over there,” the orc said, motioning north with his eyes and sniffling with a broken nose, flattened by my Ram.
“Who are you?” I asked my next question.
“We’re from the Clan of the Gray Mountain. This is our territory. Our main encampment is to the north, three days’ journey from here.”
“And what were you doing here?”
“We were sent to track down runaway slaves,” the young orc answered and shuddered. When he mentioned the slaves, my facial expression must have changed.
“Is it far to human lands?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat.
“Thirty days’ journey,” the orc answered after a bit of thought.
When I heard that, I took a heavy sigh and asked a clarifying question:
“Do you mean the Western Baronies?”
“Yes,” the orc nodded.
“Good,” I said. “Now tell me something about your lands and neighbors.”
The captive quickly brought me up to speed on local affairs. Of course, I wasn’t going to believe everything. But I had no alternative, so I’d have to make do.
When the orc finished, I squinted and looked him in the eyes:
“And one final question. What were you planning to do to me?”
The tusked bastard’s little eyes got all shifty and he quickly responded:
“We saw you and figured you were lost. We wanted to help. Let you sit by our fire. Give you some food. Then show you the way back to your people.”
“I see,” I nodded as I stood up.
The orc wanted to say something else, but Gorgie snapped his neck in a lightning-fast blow.
“Let’s look through the loot and go pay their camp a little visit,” I said to the harn. “I just know this valiant slaver was lying to us. I can feel it in my bones.”
Chapter 6
EVERY ORC I KILLED netted me two silver tablets. Plus ten thousand esses for the whole battle. Beyond that, when looting their corpses, I found sixty-three copper and fourteen silver coins. The orcs were not carrying any esses or tablets.
As an aside, the money we found was not only from my homeland. The backs of a few of their silver coins depicted a different profile, which I recognized as the dreaded Steel King. His daughter was slated to marry our Prince Albert. There has been buzz about their long-awaited engagement for the whole last year. Even my father had a positive view of their union. He insisted that their marriage would significantly strengthen our kingdoms.
Hm... At any rate, I don’t give a crap about the personal lives of the royals. Much the way none of them give a crap about me. The only thing connecting me to them is the fact that their faces are depicted on the coins in my pocket.
I bundled up the orcs’ scythes, bows, knives, arrows and a few pieces of equipment and dragged over to the riverbank. We noticed the small abandoned den of some creature on its slope yesterday evening. That was where I stashed the bundle of captured weapons. On my way up the bank, a message appeared before my eyes:
— You have created a simple hiding spot.
— Congratulations! You receive:
— Experience essence (15).
— Clay tablet of Mind.
— Clay tablet “Hiding Spot Maker.”
— Clay tablet of Observation.
I wondered why the Great System didn’t react the same way when we hid the firepaw’s head in the bushes. There were two epic fangs there, after all. Maybe it was because we didn’t actually get the fangs out?
Hmm... There’s no fooling the Great System. Back in the caverns, I tried several times to make false hidings spots with all my stuff but, alas, there was never a reaction. Clearly the primary deity of our world had a nuanced understanding of my intentions.
Walking behind the harn, I started thinking about the belongings of the cartmen or warriors who attacked the forest farmstead. I could have hidden them as well. Along with Master Chi’s box, which I’d simply tossed into some bushes. It was probably worth something. That settles it! From now on, I will hide everything I can’t carry.
A few hours later, Gorgie brought me to the orcish encampment. I could smell the acrid smoke before we came near, but I never saw any light from the fires. Only when I got up to an acceptable distance did I realize what the issue was. The steppe warriors were hunkered down in a shallow gully, which kept their small bonfire concealed.
So that asshole did lie to me. Gorgie had already caught the scent of two beings. The first was definitely an orc, while the second... Hm... Something very puny and very weak.
I carefully crawled to the edge of the gulley. Through the branches of a dry shrub, I had a good view of the whole thing.
A thin level-eight orc was sitting on a stone and greedily gnawing on a small bone. The disgustingly loud chomping made me wince.
Just a step away from him, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, there was a small fluffy creature with big ears. Its tiny hands folded on its chest and a plaintive grimace on its face, it was watching the orc’s every move. Based on the frequent gulping, the kid was very hungry.
A scrawny little body, level three, looks inoffensive. I don’t think he’s gonna give us any trouble.
The orc, still scarfing down food, gave a loud dry retch. Just then, a small chunk of either meat or bone flew out of his mouth. The fluff-ball immediately tried to attack the fallen food, but he wasn’t fast enough. The orc’s crooked leg gave a sharp jerk and the little creature, its ears flapping comically, flew back several feet.
The orc immediately gave a vile chortle. I meanwhile winced again. Apparently they all laugh the same. The poor fluff-ball meanwhile slowly picked himself up and stumbled back over to the bonfire. Only then did I notice the loop of crude rope around his neck.
“Mee-ee...” the kid squeaked woefully.
— Attention! Your Mind score is high enough to activate the “Language of the Gremlins!”
— Would you like to activate it?
So that’s what you are! Sure, let’s activate it.
“You’ll be fine!” the orc barked maliciously in reply. “I’m not happy with you. Today you go hungry.”
The gremlin gave a sad sigh and lowered his little head in sorrow. His wide pointed ears drooped like two gray little leaves. Tears were welling up in the corners of his big eyes.
“Alright, brother,” I whispered to the harn. “Let’s take this babysitter down.”
“Hrn,” Gorgie agreed and smoothly bolted forward.
The orc, knocked over by a Ram, smacked loudly against the gulley slope and stopped cold, his eyes staring fearfully at his approaching scaly demise.
— You have killed Steppe Orc (8).
— Congratulations! You receive:
— Experience essence (1600).
— Silver tablet (2).
The gremlin squeaked in fear and tried to run, but the harn blocked his path. The little one, shivering slightly, squeezed himself up into a ball and covered his little snout with his ears.
“Hey!” I called out quietly once I was down in the gulley. “Don’t be afraid!”
The sound of my voice made the gremlin shudder and slowly raise his head. There was a look of mistrust and surprise in his light-gray eyes. He glanced at Gorgie, who was peacefully licking his lips, then back at me. His already large eyes grew even larg
er.
“Do you understand my language?” I asked, figuring it unwise to display my newly acquired knowledge of the gremlin tongue.
The fluffball nodded and quietly answered:
“Yes...”
“Was that orc alone?” I asked.
The gremlin shook his head rapidly and answered:
“No. Five of our warriors went out onto the steppe. They should be back soon.”
“They won’t be coming back,” I grumbled. Actually, props to the kid — he was being honest with me. Seemingly he didn’t like the orcs either.
“Hrn!” Gorgie called. He was standing next to a pile of garbage and sniffing loudly.
“Interesting,” I muttered and headed in that direction, not letting the big-eared pipsqueak out of my sight. When I saw what the harn had found, I laughed with delight.
“Well, would you look at that? These guys run a pretty tight ship! They found our firepaw head and brought it to their camp!”
They must have been after us a long time.
“Hryrk is the one who found the monster head,” the gremlin quietly informed me. “He’s a great warrior!”
“Uh, I think you might be getting ahead of yourself calling him a great warrior,” I snorted. “But that your Hryrk had a splendid nose for other peoples’ stuff is indisputable.”
“So, you killed the monster?” the gremlin guessed.
“Well, we did,” I added some clarity.
“Hrn!” Gorgie confirmed.
The big-eared kid’s eyes went amusingly wide and he looked admiringly from me to the harn and back.
“Listen,” I decided to change topic. “You must be very hungry.”
The gremlin nodded very quickly.
“Do they have any food left?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then let’s eat and, in the meantime, you can tell me about yourself and these warriors. Then I’ll let you go. Deal?”
For the first time, the gremlin gave a timid smile.
We sat at the fire waiting for the poor thing to eat his fill, then I started to ask questions:
“So, what’s your name?”
“Mee,” the big-eared kid answered with a full mouth.
“Alright Mee. How did you learn my language?”
“The Clan of the Gray Mountain has many slaves from the west,” Mee answered eagerly. “I have been hearing and speaking it for a long time.”
“I see,” I nodded. “Is the main encampment far from here?”
“Eight days’ journey.”
“And what were these six doing here?”
“They were sent to track down runaway slaves.”
Good. The things I was hearing from the gremlin and young orc were lining up.
“Could the slaves really have made it this far?” I asked with mistrust in my voice.
“No,” the gremlin shook his head. “We found their remains six days ago. Some beast tore them to shreds.”
After saying that, the kid shuddered.
“Then why are you way out here, so far from your main encampment?”
“We were on our way back when Hryrk saw some human footprints on the riverbank. They were fresh, so the warriors decided to give chase.”
I nodded thoughtfully. Seems like everything is coming together.
“Okay, enough about that. Now the next question... Who are you and why are you with them?”
“I am a slave of Hryrk, the leader of the squadron.”
“You’re not a slave anymore,” I corrected. “Did you not get a message saying the mind control was broken?”
“No,” the gremlin shook his head. “I was not bound mentally.”
“So it was an oath?” I asked.
“No.”
“If you were not bound by any oath or psychic magic, why didn’t you run away?” I asked, struck.
The kid sighed.
“I was born a slave. I am very weak. I’d never make it on the steppe. I’ve seen others try to run away. They were stronger than me, but they were always brought back. And just so you know, the orcs actually celebrate when slaves run away. They send young warriors out to catch them. It’s a kind of test of their mettle. But it happens very rarely. Gremlin-kind has been living in slavery for very many years. We no longer remember what it means to be free...”
I frowned. That was a new one on me. To live voluntarily in slavery? Nope. Not the life for me.
“And what do they make you do?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“Work, gather experience essences and tablets,” the gremlin answered, shrugging his shoulders. “Then surrender all the loot to my master.”
Hm... How familiar...
“Okay then,” I said. “Now you are free and may do whatever you wish. But before you leave, swear an oath that you didn’t see us.”
Maybe it was just me, but I thought I saw a grimace of fear on the gremlin’s little snout. He glanced toward the darkened steppe cautiously.
Hmm... A strange situation. I set him free, but the former slave wasn’t especially happy about it.
I interrogated the gremlin a bit more about his former masters and decided I’d heard enough. Time to get out of here. The harn is acting impatient too. But first I need to look through all the loot. Although...
“Listen Mee, pick up all the most valuable items in this camp and bring them here.”
The gremlin eagerly tore off and started digging through the orcs’ bags. A little while later, a small mountain of stuff had grown up at my feet starting with a scimitar and ending with bone-and-tusk orcish necklaces.
There were also separate stacks of copper and silver coins. Alas, there were no tablets or esses. Although Mee may have just hidden them for himself. After dumping all the coins into my backpack, I sifted through the bone pile disgustedly with my foot then asked with suspicion in my voice:
“Weren’t there any esses or tablets?”
That made the gremlin shake his head and answer:
“No! I swear!”
Reading the system’s confirmation, I nodded in satisfaction — another point for honesty.
“What are these tusks and bones you’ve brought me?”
“Every orcish warrior wears jewelry like this. It shows how many enemies an orc has killed. The more kills, the higher their respect in the clan,” Mee quickly explained.
“I see,” I said and waved a hand:
“You can keep them if you like.”
The gremlin started turning his head in fear.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, baffled.
“You defeated the orcs they belonged to. They’re yours by right. Only you may take the honor and glory for defeating such great warriors. Beyond that, you will be challenged to duels by the families of the orcs you bested, because killing an orc makes you a blood enemy of their entire family.”
“Well, in that case,” I said carelessly. “I’ll have to hide them.”
I’m not exactly raring to go on a walk through the main encampment of the Clan of the Gray Mountain with these bone garlands around my neck. As a matter of fact, the farther I get from there the better.
But I have no idea what to do with this firepaw head. It seems to be following us. Although...
“Listen, Mee, you have the Butchery skill?”
“Sure,” the gremlin nodded. “But it’s just level two. Hryrk was taking this head to the main encampment so one of the hunters could help him get the valuable fangs out.”
“What a pity,” I said with a heavy sigh, standing to my full height and adding:
“Welp, I’ve gotta go. If you like, you can take some of these weapons. As for you, I suggest you get as far from this place as possible. There are many dangerous beasts on the steppe right now and they have excellent senses that can lead them to any source of smoke or blood.”
The poor thing stood there not budging. His ears, big and wide like burdock leaves, were quivering slightly. A look of fear was plastered on his gray eyes.
I felt truly sorry for the gremlin. Essentially, I was the reason for his unenviable position.
Yes, Mee was a slave, but it was relatively safer for him with the orcs. Although, on the other hand, was I just gonna kill him? So I left the temporary camp with contradictory feelings. Taking him with me seemed unwise. Who’s to say what this sweet looking creature had in his mind? Who could guarantee that my throat wouldn’t be slit while I slept? What if all his fear was just for show?
The Wastes Page 8
