“He lies,” growled one of the guards at Ilo’s side. The queen quieted him with a wave of her hand.
“If you prefer, I will only train inside the mountain from now on,” Qul was quick to add.
Queen Ilo chuckled. “By all means,” she began. “Please, train wherever it is most comfortable for you. I only came here today out of curiosity, not suspicion. If you enjoy training alone, continue to train alone.”
“Thank you, my queen,” Qul said, offering her a deep bow.
“One final thing,” Ilo replied over her shoulder as she turned to leave. “An orc has been seen somewhere to the north a few times. He is either lost, incredibly stupid, or both. If you see him, bring me his head.”
Qul swelled with pride at the thought of pleasing the queen with such service. “Perhaps he is a scout for a larger force,” he added, hoping his logic would impress her.
Ilo nodded as she walked away, but only slightly. “Kill him if he is, kill him if he isn’t,” she replied nonchalantly.
“Yes, my liege.”
“Thank you, Qul,” she said, though he could barely hear her voice.
She knew my name, was the only thought running through Qul’s head as he watched the queen and her body guards return to the interior of the mountain complex.
When she had finally left his sight, a thousand more ideas replaced the singular thought that had transfixed him. The encounter had gone poorly, Qul knew without a doubt, but he had learned something vitally important: there was a way to impress the queen and establish himself in the guard, and the way was right before him.
“I need to find that orc,” he said aloud. The words brought a smile to his face that he could not repress. Killing the orc would not only win him favor, but it would settle any suspicions Queen Ilo had about him or his loyalty.
Several weeks after Qul’s encounter with the queen on the side of the mountain, he finally found something which gave him a glimmer of hope. Standing only twenty or thirty yards beneath the icy summit of the mountain, he spotted a depression in a fresh snowbank that did not look natural.
Shouldering the three heavy poles he had been carrying while he climbed, Qul bent against the blustery wind and trudged toward the spot. He did not know what he would find, but he was determined to find something.
Qul kept his poles balanced over his muscled back as he brushed the light snow away, careful not to move too quickly and destroy what evidence might be lurking underneath. In his mind, he imagined a set of orcish footprints leading to a den or hovel somewhere on the mountain, an unsuspecting orc waiting inside to be slaughtered by Qul’s hand. To his great disappointment, nothing was there. Qul pushed a few loose stones around on the patch of land where he had cleared the snow, but he knew it was fruitless.
With a heavy sigh, Qul readjusted the weighted poles on his back and turned, ready to start the perilous journey back toward the mountain’s base. He typically climbed the mountain four times each day when he wasn’t directly assigned to an official duty, all the while searching for signs of the mysterious orc Ilo had mentioned.
He had only taken a few steps when a sound like crunching snow caught his ear. Qul whirled around, dropped two of his metal poles, and set his third pole in a defensive position in front of him.
There was nothing.
Still, Qul waited. “Come out, coward,” he growled into the icy wind. He knew it was useless. Even if the orc was there, orcs did not speak the gruff language of the minotaurs.
“Coward,” Qul repeated. He waited a moment longer before the shivering in his legs forced him to retreat. Grabbing his other poles from the snow, Qul continued down the slope until the trail became flat enough for him to run.
Every day, Qul returned to the same spot near the mountain peak. There he would stand like some snow-covered statue, waiting for some sign of the orc, day after day.
On the fourteenth day of his self-imposed vigil, Qul finally heard something again. He stood knee-deep in the snow, two metal poles resting at his feet and one gripped tightly in his hands. There he waited. His eyes scanned the area, but he couldn’t see much through the driving snow that often kept him company at the summit.
Suddenly, the sound of crunching snow broke his trance, ripping his gaze to the left. “Orc!” Qul bellowed. His breath melted some of the snow from around his lips and the water ran down his chin, invigorating him with its chill against his skin.
To Qul’s great surprise, he heard a response. “Technically, most would refer to me as a half-orc, Qul,” it said. The words were soft, almost gentle, and came from nearby.
Qul spun on his hoofs, whipping his metal pole from side to side. Each of his swings was powerful enough to crack solid stone, but he struck only the gliding snow.
“That’s no way to treat someone you’ve only just met,” the voice continued with the hint of a laugh.
“You speak the minotaur language,” Qul growled in response. The realization frightened him—he had never heard of other races speaking the old runes so clearly. He stopped the movement of his pole, though he kept it balanced before his chest and ready to strike. “Show yourself, orc,” he said.
“Qul,” the voice tsked. “I told you… Only one of my parents was a green-skinned brute.”
“Fight me face to face!” Qul yelled, hoping to catch a glimpse of the voice’s owner before freezing to death. When his lips moved they cracked in protest. His mane was matted in frost and his simple leather tunic did painfully little to contain his body heat.
“That sounds like a foolish idea, Qul,” the voice taunted. “Half-orcs are short and small compared to minotaurs, wouldn’t you agree?”
Qul snorted. “Coward,” he spat. He shuffled his hooves in an attempt to get blood flowing through his legs again.
“Fine,” the half-orc sighed. “I suppose I will let you live, though it pains me to do so.”
With a flash of magic, the half-orc appeared about ten feet in front of Qul, just out of his reach. “Are you cold?” he taunted further, provoking Qul’s ire with every sneered word.
Qul tried to move forward and crush the insolent creature, but his feet felt like iron. He managed a single step, but the half-orc casually hopped backward and out of reach once more.
“If you promise to behave, I will warm you,” the half-orc said with a sinister grin.
Summoning all the strength he had left, Qul bellowed and heaved himself forward, but his feet could no longer support his weight. Qul crashed into the snow with a resounding thud. He tried to remember how long he had been at the summit in the freezing wind, but even his mind felt sluggish. “Magic,” he concluded, although he knew his voice was lost to the elements. Slowly, Qul tried to stand. He managed to get one knee under his chest before he fell back to the frigid ground.
“So persistent,” the half-orc prodded, now standing above the prone minotaur.
Qul felt the life fading from his chest. He could no longer feel the cold touch of the snow against his hide. He couldn’t feel anything. Then, without warning, his world went black.
Chapter 4
“You’re alive,” a voice said, echoing several times before dissipating. Qul pried one of his eyes open. He was in a cave somewhere underground, but he did not recognize his surroundings. The half-orc stood several feet from him, casually leaning against the wall and twirling one of Qul’s massive exercise poles in his hand. The other two were propped up in a small nook.
“What do you want from me?” Qul growled at the peculiar creature. He tried to lift himself from the ground, but his feet were bound with a rope that he could feel had magical strength.
“Honestly,” the half-orc began, “your belligerent attitude bores me. I kept you alive, brought you here, and now you cannot move. Please try to understand that.”
For a moment, Qul considered his predicament. He knew he could not escape. Magic, which was far more common among the orcs and humans than in the minotaur clans, was something Qul barely understood. Even the mag
ic of the Brood-Fight, something he had witnessed relatively often, was altogether beyond his understanding. Minotaur shaman were rare, and they were always highly respected members of the clan. There hadn’t been a shaman born in recent memory, and Qul had only ever met the one who orchestrated the Brood-Fight. If the half-orc he faced was indeed a wizard or a shaman, Qul knew he was outmatched—terribly outmatched.
“Thank you,” he said awkwardly, “for keeping me alive.” The words tasted like salt in his mouth.
A broad smile appeared on the half-orc’s green face. “The beast knows his manners!” the creature taunted, though he laughed while he spoke. “Now, you’ve probably guessed by now that if you’re alive, it means I have need of you, yes?”
Qul thought for a few seconds before nodding.
“Good,” the half-orc said. “What I need from you is an alliance.”
Now it was Qul who laughed. “The clan will never ally with orcs,” he replied.
“Oh?” the half-orc questioned. “Never? Perhaps you do not understand the gravity of your situation.” With a flick of the shaman’s wrist, the magical rope binding Qul’s legs grew immensely tight, threatening to sever his feet from his body.
Finally, the rope relented and Qul spoke again. “What must I do?” he said quietly.
The green-skinned creature knelt down in front of Qul and brought his face next to the minotaur’s ear. “I need you to become the king,” the half-orc whispered slowly. “But not yet. Tell no one that you have seen me. When the time is proper, I will find you once more. Until then, continue your life as though nothing has happened. But know that I will always be watching you. If you ever stray from the path of royalty, I’ll be there to nudge you back toward the correct direction. You may not enjoy some of those nudges.”
Qul left the half-orc’s cave in some sort of a daze. He knew where the strange creature’s lair was atop his own mountain home, which struck him as odd. Why would the creature, a thing hated by orcs and minotaurs alike, let him know where he lived so easily? Qul’s mind swam with the possibilities. Traps, tricks, manipulations—Qul’s brain was not accustomed to unravelling such mysteries.
One thing he knew for certain: he could not tell Queen Ilo what he had seen. Finding a half-orc and not killing it would be greatly insulting to his abilities as a warrior and a member of the royal guard. He could either return with the creature’s ugly green head, or he would never speak of it at all.
Later that night, Qul sought to put an end to the mysteries before he became too deeply entangled in their sinister webs. He took one of his exercise poles and left the set of caverns that served as the barracks sometime after midnight. Dashing from shadow to shadow in the near-lightless tunnels, Qul made his way from the bowels of the mountain to one of the exits almost at the summit. The tunnel he chose was small and used primarily for ventilation, so he had to slide his pole through his belt and climb with his back pressed against the stone for twenty yards or more before he reached the surface.
Once outside, Qul wiped a layer of sweat from his face with the back of his hairy hand. The night air was painfully cold, but it was still. No wind bit into his flesh to chill his bones as it had before. This time, Qul had come prepared to survive the arctic conditions of the mountain’s peak. He wore a heavy cloth cloak over his shoulders and had donned a scarf of fox fur around his neck. Over his hooves he wore a pair of woolen boots he had pilfered from the storeroom. Finding warm clothes had proven rather difficult. While members of the clan occasionally left on longer journeys to hunt game or bands of orcs, they rarely did so in the winter because there simply wasn’t the need.
In the darkness, Qul’s eyes had little trouble picking out the details of the mountain slope. He had lived for decades in the dimly lit chambers of his clan’s home, and the moon shone brightly as well, further guiding his steps as he ascended.
He remembered where the cave was exactly; he had made sure of it. Just ten yards below the mountain’s peak, a small path presented itself around the side of a fallen boulder. It was impossible to see from the passable section of the summit, but Qul had clearly marked the area with his hoofprints. Returning to the path, he wondered if leaving such evidence of his earlier visit had been wise. Qul shook his head. “No one comes here,” he said to the cold night. He couldn’t help but smile. “No one will come here again after this night,” he mused. “And I will have won Queen Ilo’s favor.”
Rounding the boulder proved more difficult than Qul remembered. He had only a span of inches separating his body from what looked like the edge of the world. Luckily, the small ledge was mostly free of snow and ice, and his boots gripped the ground well.
At the opening of the cave, Qul crouched low to keep his presence unknown. Torchlight drifted from the small cave in weak waves. Qul tightened his grip on his pole.
A voice made him stop. It wasn’t the half-orc’s delicate tones, but another minotaur’s rough voice. Qul waited at the side of the cave entrance, suddenly worried that he may have gotten himself too deeply involved. The implications of other minotaurs participating in some sort of conspiracy made his head spin.
“The farmers should be far enough from their city tomorrow by noon,” the half-orc said. “Strike then.”
The minotaur responded with a voice Qul recognized. “I’ll find the artifact with one of the farmers?” the beast asked.
Qul pictured the minotaur easily in his mind. He was one of Queen Ilo’s personal guards, one of the few minotaurs entrusted with the queen’s everyday safety. Maybe he is playing the half-orc into some sort of trap, Qul thought for a moment, still tucked away at the side of the cave entrance.
“Just as we have planned,” the half-orc replied.
“Once I have brought the scroll to the queen, you’re sure she will choose me as her mate?” the minotaur asked.
The half-orc sighed. “If her affinity for human-made artifacts is as high as you say it is, I believe the plan will work,” he said.
Qul was taken aback. They work together? The idea of the queen’s personal guard colluding with the half-orc made his skin crawl. Why did the half-orc attempt to recruit him, to tease him with the idea of kingship, if there was already another minotaur working toward the same end?
Shrinking down to hide himself as much as possible next to the cave entrance, Qul waited as the other minotaur left. He was right—the minotaur was one of the queen’s personal guards. He had not spoken directly to the minotaur more than a handful of times, but he knew the guard’s reputation as a fighter. Qul thought for a moment of charging him and knocking the guard from the mountain ledge, but the thought quickly left his mind. Even if he managed to somehow hold his own footing on the narrow path, the half-orc would surely hear the commotion and kill him.
Qul needed to wait. He needed to ambush the farmers the half-orc had mentioned before the guard and steal whatever scroll the light-skinned creatures were transporting.
Sometime just before dawn, Qul left his barracks in the direction of the clan’s map room near the southern end of the cave system. The minotaurs of his clan rarely, if ever, left their mountain home on extended campaigns that would lead them far over the horizons, so the map room was typically only visited when war was brewing with another clan. Inside, Qul lit a small torch and began rummaging through the stacks of painted bark to find the one detailing the route from the mountain to the nearest human settlement.
It did not take long to find the right map, but another minotaur appeared before he could cover his tracks and leave.
“Why are you here?” Kitri asked from the doorway, startling him.
Qul did not try to hide the map in his hand. “Shut the door,” he told his sister. “Perhaps you can help me.”
“Oh?” Kitri asked, a smile spreading on her face.
“I heard of a mission set forth by Queen Ilo,” Qul lied. He wasn’t good at thinking on his feet, but the tale felt convincing so he continued. “There is a caravan of humans passing near the mount
ain today. One of them has an important scroll the queen needs. I intend to get it for her.”
Kitri pondered the story for a moment before nodding. “Why was I not told?” she questioned.
Qul had already devised a response for just such a suspicion. “She only told her personal guards, not the rest of us,” he said. “If I get the scroll, perhaps she will elevate my status and I will replace one of her guards.”
Kitri laughed. “You’ve only been a member of the royal guard for a few weeks,” she said. “You haven’t even received a real assignment yet. You spend your days training, sometimes guarding useless storehouses, and occasionally learning to repair your own armor. I have been a royal guard for over a decade and even I do not get the opportunity to see the queen very often.”
“Still, it will take little effort to kill a handful of humans. I must try,” Qul explained.
“I will accompany you,” Kitri said after a moment. “You are untested. Maybe I can keep you alive out there, but even my immense skills might not prove to be enough for such a monumental task.”
Qul thought to convince her not to accompany him, but he did not want to raise any more suspicions. With a nod, he let her sarcasm go and told her to get ready.
The two siblings stood in the waxing morning light near the base of the mountain in full battle regalia. Qul’s armor was heavy, black, and covered in mystic etchings. To his left, Kitri wore a finer suit of scales linked with bands of shining chain that she had been given several years prior as a token of appreciation for her service.
Qul tossed his heavy exercise pole from hand to hand. He had not yet been issued a proper weapon, but it did not matter. Humans were weak and squishy. They would break apart under the weight of his wrath.
Kitri had taken a pair of flanged maces from the armory and had them strapped horizontally across the flat of her back. “Are you ready?” she asked, her breath frosting in the cold air.
The Minotaur King Page 3
