Again, bodies were hauled away and concealed.
Panting, Haskeer looked to Coilla, and exchanged a triumphant thumbs-up with her. A few further signs established that their next move would be checking the huts.
The one Haskeer’s group had reached was without windows. Its door was not a door as such, but rather an open entrance covered by a rush hanging. He led the way to it and they positioned themselves, ready for trouble. Very carefully, Haskeer edged the curtain aside a little, vigilant for the tiniest sound. The frail dawn allowed in enough light for him to see.
What he saw was kobolds. Their sleeping forms covered the floor, and each cot in a line against the far wall was shared by heaps of them. Weapons were scattered everywhere.
Haskeer held his breath, fearful of waking the overwhelming force. He began to withdraw slowly. A kobold stretched out near the door stirred fitfully in its sleep. Haskeer went rigid, and stayed that way until he was absolutely sure it was safe to move again. Then he gently replaced the curtain and silently expelled a relieved breath.
He backed off three paces. The curtain stirred. Haskeer and the grunts flattened themselves to the wall on either side of the door.
A dishevelled kobold came out of the hut, too drowsy to pay much attention to its surroundings. It staggered a couple of steps and pawed at its groin. A vacantly blissful expression on its face, and swaying gently, the creature let loose a hissing stream of urine. Haskeer pounced, locking his arm around the creature’s neck. There was a brief struggle. The kobold’s gush of water splashed uncontrollably. A muscular jerk of Haskeer’s forearm snapped the bandit’s neck.
The orc sergeant remained stock still, holding up the limp body, listening for any further movement. Satisfied, he dragged the corpse to the spot where their other victims were dumped, cursing soundlessly all the while at the piss soaking his boots. After dropping the body he continued grumbling as he rubbed them on the back of his breeches.
Apart from size, the hut Coilla’s group were investigating differed from the larger building in two respects. It had a door, and at the side, a window. Coilla ordered the grunts to keep a lookout while she tiptoed to it. Stooped beneath the opening, which had neither shutter nor blind, she tried to gauge any noises from inside. Once attuned, she heard a rhythmic, wheezy sound that took a moment to identify as snoring.
She slowly raised her head and looked in.
The single room had three occupants. Two of them were kobold guards, sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall and legs outstretched. Both seemed to be asleep, and one was the source of the snoring.
But it was the third occupant that drew her attention.
Tied to the room’s only chair was a being at least as short as the kobolds, though of much chunkier build. Its rough hide had a green tinge. The large pumpkin-shaped head appeared out of proportion with the rest of the body, and the ears jutted outward slightly at an angle. There was something of the vulture about its neck. The elongated eyes had excessively fleshy lids, with black elliptical orbs against white surrounds shot through with yellow veining. Its pate and face were hairless, save for whiskery sideburns of reddish-brown tufts of fur, turning flaxen.
It wore a simple grey robe, the worse for being obviously long unwashed. Its feet were shod in suede ankle boots, with tarnished buckles, that had also seen better days. Where skin showed, on the face and hands, which were not unlike an orc’s, it was wrinkly like a serpent’s. Coilla reckoned the creature was very old.
As the thought occurred, the gremlin looked up and saw her.
His eyes widened. But he made no sound, as she feared he might. They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Coilla dropped out of sight.
With signs and whispers she conveyed her discovery to the grunts, and ordered them to stay while she reported. As they hid, she signalled Haskeer. He left his own troopers behind and joined her for the jog back to the hill.
By the time they rejoined the rest of the band, Stryke was growing anxious.
“We took care of all the guards we came across,” Haskeer blurted. “And that big hut’s full of the whole fucking raiding party by the looks of it. The little bastards.”
“Any sign of the cylinder?”
Haskeer shook his head.
“No,” Coilla concurred. “But what I saw in the smaller hut was interesting. They’ve got a prisoner in there, Stryke. A gremlin. He looked pretty old, too.”
“A gremlin? What the hell’s that about?”
Coilla shrugged.
Haskeer was getting impatient. “What are we waiting for? Let’s whomp ’em while they’re sleeping!”
“We’re going to,” Stryke told him. “But we’re doing it right. The cylinder’s the reason we’re here, remember. This is our only chance of finding it. And I don’t want that prisoner hurt.”
“Why not?”
“Because our enemy’s enemy is our friend.”
The concept seemed alien to Haskeer. “We have no friends.”
“Ally, then. But I want him alive, if possible. If the cylinder isn’t here, he might be able to tell us where to look. Unless any of you have worked out how to understand that kobold gibberish.”
“We should be moving,” Jup urged, “before the bodies are found.”
“Right,” Stryke agreed. “This is how we’re doing it. Two groups. Me, Coilla and Alfray will join the grunts already at the small hut. I want to be sure of the prisoner. Haskeer and Jup, you take everybody else and surround the big hut. But don’t do anything till I get there. Got that?”
The sergeants nodded, but avoided looking at each other.
“Good. Let’s go.”
The Wolverines divided into their assigned groups and flowed down to the settlement. They met no resistance and saw no movement.
Once Stryke’s party had joined with the grunts left on guard, they positioned themselves outside the smaller hut. They could see Jup and Haskeer’s group doing the same.
“Stand ready for my order,” Stryke instructed in a hushed tone. “Coilla, let’s see that window.”
She went ahead, staying low, and he followed. After peeking through the opening she beckoned him to look. The scene was as before; two lounging kobold guards, spark out, and their bound prisoner. This time the gremlin was unaware of being watched and didn’t look up. Coilla and Stryke crept back to the others.
“Time to take a gamble,” Stryke whispered. “Let’s do this fast and quiet.”
He rapped on the door and ducked to the side, out of sight. A long half-minute passed as they waited tensely. Stryke wondered if things had gone sour, and wouldn’t have been surprised if the entire kobold nation had appeared and fallen on their necks. He scanned the terrain, saw nothing, then knocked again, a little louder. After a few more seconds crawled by they heard the scrape of a bolt.
The door opened and one of the kobolds stuck its head out. It was done casually enough to indicate it wasn’t expecting trouble. Stryke seized the creature by its neck and savagely tugged it aside. The other Wolverines poured into the hut.
Stryke killed the squirming kobold with a single dagger-thrust to its heart. Dragging the body behind him, he quickly entered the building. The second sentry was already dead. It hadn’t even had a chance to rise, and the rigour of violent death was frozen on its face. Stryke dropped the first guard’s corpse next to it.
Coilla had her hand over the mouth of the trembling prisoner. With the other she held a knife to his throat.
“Make a sound and you follow them in death,” she promised. “If I take my hand away, will you keep quiet?”
The gremlin nodded, eyes wide with fear. Coilla removed her hand, but kept the knife near enough to underline her threat.
“We’ve no time for a polite chat,” Stryke told the captive. “Do you know about the artifact?”
The gremlin seemed confused.
“The cylinder?”
Looking from one grim orc face to another, then down to the slaughtered kobo
lds, the gremlin returned his gaze to Stryke. Again, he nodded.
“Where is it?”
The gremlin swallowed. When he spoke, his voice had a gravelly, bass quality. But it was tempered by the higher notes of age-stretched vocal cords, and terror. “It is in the longhouse with those who sleep.”
Coilla gave him a hard look. “You’d better not be lying, ancient one.”
Stryke pointed at a grunt. “Stay with him. The rest of you come with me.”
He led them across to the longhouse.
The band armed themselves with their preferred weaponry for close-quarter fighting. Most chose knives. Stryke favoured a sword and knife combination. Haskeer settled on a hatchet.
As they’d already discovered, there was only one door. They clustered around it, Stryke, Coilla, Haskeer, Jup and Alfray to the fore.
Despite being on the edge of a township housing unknown numbers of a hostile race, certainly hundreds, Stryke was aware of a strange quietness that amounted to a kind of serenity. He put it down to the sense of calm he often felt before combat, the unique feeling of being centred, of being whole, that only the nearness of death engendered. The air, for all its impurities, had never smelt quite so sweet.
“Let’s do it,” he growled.
Haskeer ripped aside the cloth.
The Wolverines piled into the hut, laying about them with unstoppable ferocity, hacking, slashing, stabbing everything in their path. They trampled the kobolds, kicked them, bayoneted them with swords, slashed their throats, pummelled their bodies with axes. A deafening cacophony of screams, squeals and foreign-tongued curses rose from their victims to add to the chaos.
Many of the creatures died without rising. Others got to their feet only to be instantly cut down. But some, further into the packed room, did manage to stand and mount a defence. The slaughter became vicious hand-to-hand combat.
Facing a wildly slashing scimitar, Stryke ran through its owner with such force that his sword tip penetrated the wall beyond. He had to apply his boot to the kobold’s chest to prise the blade free. Without pause, he sought fresh meat.
Belying his advancing years, Alfray deftly felled a bandit to his right, switched tack and skewered another to his left.
Coilla dodged a spear-wielding assailant, slashed bare its knuckles and buried both her daggers in its chest.
Haskeer slammed his ham-like fist on top of a kobold’s head, shattering its skull, then turned and swiped his hatchet into the next foe’s stomach.
Fencing with a hissing bandit clutching a rapier, Jup knocked the weapon aside and sent his blade into the kobold’s brain via its eye.
The frenzy continued unabated. Then, as suddenly as the carnage had begun, it ended. None of the enemy was left standing.
Stryke ran a hand across his face, clearing it of sweat and blood. “Hurry!” he barked. “If that doesn’t bring more of ’em, nothing will. Find that cylinder!”
The band began a frantic search of what had become a charnel house. They rummaged through the bodies’ clothing, rooted in straw on the floor, tossed aside the possessions of the vanquished.
As Stryke reached for a corpse it proved less dead than he thought, lashing out at him with a wickedly jagged-edged cleaver. He planted his sword on its chest and fell on it with all his weight. The kobold convulsed, gurgled, died. Stryke resumed his ransacking.
He was starting to think it had all been in vain when Alfray cried out.
Everybody stopped and stared. Stryke pushed his way through them. Alfray pointed at a mutilated kobold. The cylinder was looped into the creature’s belt.
Stryke knelt and eagerly disengaged it. He held it up to the light. It looked complete. Unopened.
Haskeer was smirking, gleefully triumphant. “Nobody takes from orcs!”
“Come on!” Stryke hissed.
They poured out of the place and ran to the other hut.
If anything, the gremlin looked in even more of an agitated state. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the cylinder.
“We have to get out of here!” Jup urged.
“What do we do with him?” Haskeer asked, pointing at the quailing gremlin with his sword.
“Yes, Stryke,” Coilla said, “what about him?”
Haskeer had a typically straightforward solution. “I say we kill him and get it over with.”
Alarmed, the gremlin cowered.
For the moment, Stryke was undecided.
“This cylinder is of great significance!” the gremlin suddenly exclaimed. “For orcs! With my knowledge, I can explain it to you.”
“He’s bluffing!” Haskeer reckoned, brandishing his sword menacingly. “Finish it, I say!”
“After all,” the gremlin added tremulously, “that’s why the kobolds kidnapped me.”
“What?” Stryke said.
“To make sense of it for them. That’s why they brought me here.”
Stryke studied the captive’s face, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth. And if it made any difference to them if he was.
“What do we do, Stryke?” Coilla demanded impatiently.
He made up his mind. “Bring him. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
13
The Wolverines wasted no time getting away from Black Rock settlement. They dragged the gremlin after them, still bound and at the end of a rope. By the time their rapid route march was over, the aged creature was panting from the effort of keeping pace.
Stryke issued orders to break camp and prepare for a quick exit.
Haskeer was jubilant. “Back to Cairnbarrow, at last. I tell you, Stryke, I didn’t think we were going to do it.”
“Thanks for trusting me,” his commander replied coolly.
The sarcasm was lost on Haskeer. “We’ll be heroes when we turn up with that thing.” He nodded at the cylinder in Stryke’s belt.
“It isn’t over yet,” Alfray warned him. “We have to get there first, and that means crossing a lot of hostile territory.”
“And there’s no telling how Jennesta’s going to react to the delay,” Jup added. “The cylinder and pellucid’s no guarantee we’ll come out of this with our heads.”
“Gloom merchants,” Haskeer sneered.
Stryke thought that was rich coming from him, but decided against pointing it out. After all, this was supposed to be a joyful occasion. He wondered why he didn’t feel that way.
“Shouldn’t we hear what this one has to say?” Coilla said, indicating the gremlin. He sat on a tree stump, exhausted and frightened.
“Yes,” Haskeer agreed, “let’s get it over with or we’ll have another free-loader to drag around with us.”
“Is that what you think of our wounded comrades?” Alfray flared.
Stryke held up his hands to silence them. “That’s enough. I don’t want us standing here bickering when a couple of hundred kobolds come looking for revenge.” He addressed their involuntary guest. “What’s your name?”
“Mmm . . . Mmoo . . .” The elderly gremlin cleared his throat nervously and tried again. “M-M-M . . . Mobbs.”
“All right, Mobbs, what was that about the kobolds kidnapping you? And what do you know of this?” He tapped the cylinder.
“You have your life in your hands, gremlin,” Alfray cautioned. “Choose your words with care.”
“I’m just a humble scholar,” Mobbs said, and it sounded like a plea. “I was going about my business north of here, in Hecklowe, when those wretched bandits seized me.” An edge of indignation crept into his voice.
“Why?” Coilla asked. “What did they want from you?”
“I have made languages my life’s work, particularly dead languages. They needed my skills to decipher the contents of the artifact. I believe it to be a message carrier, you see, and —”
“We know that,” Stryke interjected.
“Therefore it is not the cylinder itself that is of interest but rather the knowledge it may contain.”
“Kobolds are stupid,” Alfray s
tated bluntly. “What use would they have of knowledge?”
“Perhaps they were acting for others. I know not.”
Haskeer scoffed.
But Stryke was intrigued enough that he wanted to hear more. “I’ve a feeling your story isn’t one to be told in a hurry, Mobbs. We’ll get ourselves into the forest and hear the rest. And it better be good.”
“Oh, come on, Stryke!” Haskeer protested. “Why waste time when we could be heading for home?”
“Getting ourselves hidden from another kobold attack isn’t wasting time. Do as you’re told.”
Haskeer went off in a sulk.
The camp was cleared, the wounded were made ready to travel, and Mobbs was placed on the horse pulling Meklun’s litter. All traces of their presence erased, the Wolverines made haste for the shelter of Black Rock Forest.
They reached their goal three hours later.
The forest was fully mature. Its towering trees spread a leafy ceiling far overhead, filtering the already weak sunlight, making ground-level shadowy and moist. Crunching on a brittle carpet of brown mulch, they set up a temporary camp. Grunts were assigned to keep their eyes peeled for signs of trouble.
For security, no fires were lit. So their first meal of the day was another austere ration: wedges of dense black bread, solid plugs of cured meat, and water.
Stryke, Coilla, Jup and Haskeer sat with Mobbs. Everybody else gathered around and looked on. Alfray came back from checking the wounded and pushed through the lounging troopers.
“Darig’s not too bad,” he reported, “but Meklun’s fever’s got worse.”
“Do what you can for him,” Stryke said. Then he, and the whole band, turned their attention to Mobbs.
The gremlin had refused food and taken only a little water. Stryke reckoned fear had dulled his appetite. Now their scrutiny was making him even more uncomfortable.
“You’ve nothing to fear from us,” Stryke assured him, “as long as you’re honest. So no more puzzles.” He held up the cylinder. “I want to hear exactly what you know about this thing, and why it’s worth your life.”
Orcs Page 12
