The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2)

by J. Langland

  They were traveling down a rather wide boulevard towards the town center. He noted a number of taverns and brothels nearby. Given the proximity of the town to this gate, this was probably the main entrance for orc warriors. Tal Gor had not been here since he was a child. Soo An and his brothers came more frequently.

  Naturally, everyone in the city stopped what they were doing to watch them walk down the street. The D’Orcs were giving the townspeople mean glares; clearly enjoying themselves. Bor Tal and Soo An nodded or waved occasionally to merchants or townspeople they recognized. He let his eyes smile, noting the way his tribemates were working so hard to pretend they did this sort of thing every day. He chuckled softly in his throat.

  They were part of a legend come to life! For once, he felt the sort of glory the mighty heroes of old must have felt as they marched through conquered cities. True, they had not conquered Murgatroy, but they were looked upon with awe, trepidation and even fear. He was very pleased to note a number of small children crying with fright. As they passed one opening, a bunch of human youths who had been trying to get a look at what was coming down the street saw them, screamed in fear and ran the other way.

  “Heaven,” Tal Gor said to himself.

  Vespa laughed beside him and turned to give him a big grin.

  Dider spoke up behind them. “Commander, there is a market up ahead, I am thinking we should pick up ingredients to make bread to go along with the meat.”

  “Excellent idea; why don’t you take two D’Orcs and two orcs and buy several bags of grain and, if you can, eggs and yeast, yeast first. Kirak, see if you can get some sacks of root vegetables. Turnips, potatoes—whatever, and as much as you can find,” Vespa ordered.

  “How about a wagon or two? That way we don’t have to make too many trips,” Tal Gor suggested. “Fel Nor and maybe one of your warriors could see about renting a wagon?”

  Vespa nodded. “Excellent idea, but what is renting?”

  ~

  “Why are you dragging me out here, Bastien?” Neelon demanded of his great grandson.

  “I think you need to see this. I believe it is something that hasn’t been seen in Astlan since before my father’s birth,” Bastien told the elder. “But I need your confirmation.”

  “So you need me for my geriatricity?” The old alfar complained.

  “I would use the word wisdom, sir,” Bastien corrected as he dragged his great grandfather out onto the roof deck overlooking the marketplace.

  “It had better to be important to rouse me from my meditation,” the old alfar harrumphed.

  Bastien tugged him by the hand to the wall and pointed to the large square. “There, in the market!”

  “What am I looking for?” Neelon groused, squinting out into the market.

  “You cannot miss them,” Bastien replied.

  Neelon stared out across the market for a moment before his raspy breathing stopped. His back stiffened as his full attention became riveted on the market. He began scouring every inch of the market, counting under his breath.

  “They came in with a similar-sized group of orcs. Prior to entering the city, they stopped to stable their mounts in the wargtown,” Bastien said.

  “You mean their wargs?” The elder asked in an odd voice, hopeful yet resigned.

  “Wargs only in the way those fellows with wings are orcs. They were bigger, nastier, winged wargs!” Bastien said with clear worry in his voice.

  Neelon shook his head. “What do they want? Why are they here?”

  “Apparently they are buying supplies—food, glargh, beer. I have no idea why; it must be some sort of subterfuge.”

  “Or perhaps a great gathering,” Neelon sighed.

  “Are they what I think?” Bastien said breathlessly, turning to stare again into the marketplace.

  “Assuming you think they are D’Orcs, the infernal and eternally damned minions of the Dark Lord Orcus, then yes. Yes, they are.” Neelon said, sighing again. “This is truly an ill wind and a dark day for both the alvar and the mortal races we shepherd.”

  “What should we do?” Bastien asked worriedly.

  “You and your fellow rangers need to get word to Murgandor as fast as possible. Send one messenger now, and another after these foul creatures depart, so that we can give a full accounting of their activity. They will be able to get word out to the rest of the alvar and to Prince Ariel and the Grove. Make all haste; do not rest on the journey.” Neelon sighed once more and turned to peer out into the marketplace in despair.

  ~

  Tal Gor expected the presence of the D’Orcs to cause the merchants to haggle less. Apparently, however, the orc merchants, at least, did not seem that impressed. Once a merchant determined they wanted to buy his or her wares rather than kill him and take whatever they pleased, the merchant’s tone changed considerably.

  Tal Gor was standing by the wagon that Fel Nor had rented and was directing the packing of foodstuffs. The glargh merchants were going to deliver the glargh barrels to the wargtown. While this was going on, a large orc dressed as a chieftain of some tribe Tal Gor didn’t recognize, approached him.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” the chieftain demanded loudly.

  “I am Tal Gor El Crooked Stick, Chief Shaman of the Dark Lord Tommus in Astlan.” So, maybe he was giving himself a new title, but since he was the only shaman of Lord Tommus on the planet, he figured it would be okay.

  The chieftain snorted and sneered. “And who are your ugly compatriots?”

  The chieftain was definitely intimidating, but Tal Gor knew he could show no fear. “They are my hunting partners, the immortal D’Orcs of Mount Doom, servants of my master, Lord Tommus. And who are you to question me?”

  The chieftain gave him a huff and another nasty sneer. Tal Gor could smell glargh on the man’s breath. Clearly he was in his cups. “I am Gal Trog, Chief of the Arrow Clan.”

  Tal Gor had not heard of the Arrow Clan; maybe it was one of the newer clans? “I am not familiar with your clan; however, if your tribe and your shaman wish to swear allegiance to Lord Tommus, I am sure others will soon know of your tribe,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

  “Swear allegiance? To some unknown lord? I think I’d rather pound you into the ground a couple times,” Gal Trog threatened, raising his fist.

  “I am not sure you want to move your arm further. Unless you wish me to rip it off and shove it up your soon to be greatly enlarged anus,” Virok hissed as he suddenly appeared behind Gal Trog. His claws locked on the chieftain’s upraised elbow.

  Gal Trog turned his neck as much as his collar plate armor would allow and then twisted his eyes up and to the side to look into the blood-red eyes peering from Virok’s thin, pale gray face. The chieftain swallowed audibly. Virok was nearly a foot taller than the large chieftain.

  Vespa came up behind Tal Gor. “Tell your tribe to prepare. Lord Tommus, Master of Mount Doom, has claimed his rightful place as the heir to Orcus and shall tolerate nothing less than complete obedience to his will.” Gal Trog’s eyes darted back and forth between Vespa and Virok.

  “Understood,” he finally said. Virok released his grip on Gal Trog’s arm.

  The chieftain lowered his arm and glanced briefly towards Tal Gor and nodded before sidling off and out of the crowd of D’Orcs and Crooked Sticks that had converged on the wagon. Within moments, he had vanished into the rather noisy crowd, all of whom were now talking about Lord Tommus and Mount Doom.

  Tal Gor chuckled. “Well, hopefully that will stick with him.”

  “If it does not, I will stick him with his arm, as promised,” Virok replied somberly.

  ~

  Tom was walking down one of the many hallways in Mount Doom, contemplating a nap. Between turning on the electrical system, retrieving the Etterdam party, launching two more hunting parties and providing the baseline power for the complex, he was getting a bit worn out. He wondered if he would need to go back to his old cave just to nap and rest up with
out having to compete with Mount Doom for mana.

  He was going to need to get more D’Orcs, or demons or any sort of living creatures into Mount Doom if he was going to get it to a self-sustaining state. The problem was, he had no idea how to make D’Orcs, and even if he did, it did not seem particularly ethical. If an orc died in the course of war or other circumstances and he brought them over, that would be one thing; but killing orcs just to make D’Orcs was no more ethical than what Lenamare had done to him.

  Perhaps he could get some demons to move in? Maybe they could provide support services for the D’Orcs so they could focus on training and getting ready for battle. Battle? He was thinking about getting ready for battle? Tom shook his head; he had to be honest, that was exactly what he was thinking. Between Lilith and Tiernon, one of them would eventually come a-calling and he wasn’t sure he could talk either of them out of their plans for war.

  Or did he want a war? That was probably what was disturbing him. If he admitted it to himself, he sort of wanted to wage war against his enemies. He suspected it was that whole demonization of his thought process that he had been worrying about a few weeks ago when he had popped that soldier and been so uncontrollably violent. He hated to admit it, but the violence and the battle felt energizing at times. Being around a bunch of battle-lusting D’Orcs probably was not helping either.

  Speaking of which, down the hall he noted a second D’Orc hauling a bunch of large pieces of metal equipment down a cross corridor. When he reached the corridor, he turned right and followed the D’Orc.

  The corridor went about another thousand feet before ending in what could only be called a blast door, right down to a large metal wheel and locks, not unlike the vault in which he had found the Rod of Tommus. In this case, however, the door was heavy metal and wide open.

  Behind the door was a large room lit with overhead electrical lights. The room had metal grating on the floor and several long rows of metal booths or cabinets. Down the first corridor of booths, the last D’Orc he had seen coming this way was putting his gear in one of the open cabinets and connecting cables to the equipment. He could hear some other D’Orcs banging around in other aisles. Tom walked down to this one to see what was going on.

  As he approached, the D'Orc glanced over and saw Tom. He suddenly stopped what he was doing, setting a large metal contraption down on the cabinet bench and turning to bow low to Tom. “My Lord. Varn Starsplitter at your service.”

  Tom gestured for him to rise from his bowed position. “Greetings, Varn Starsplitter. I noted you and some others carrying a lot of gear this way and came to observe.”

  Varn grinned and nodded. “A glorious day, thanks to Your Lordship! For the first time in four thousand years, we can charge our equipment!”

  Tom nodded, suddenly realizing what he was seeing. “Ah, yes. The electrical system has been down for a long time, and now it’s back on.”

  “Exactly. At long last I can charge my battle suit and my blaster, as well as the batteries for the range finding and ignition systems for my other weapons. Clearly, requiring a battery for the rocket launcher’s ignitions system was a tactical flaw. However, traditional fire starters don’t work so well in a vacuum.” Varn shrugged.

  “How much tech equipment do we have here at Mount Doom?” Tom asked.

  “A fair amount. We used to plunder base stations and conquered ships and haul stuff here and then our engineers would rig it to work in the Abyss on the lightning grid,” Varn said. “Commanders Zog and Morok have put a team together to bring the Tech Command Center, or TCC, back online. It is the second door to the right when you enter the main command center. It will be a great advantage should Lilith’s forces try another attack. She has not devoted much in the way of tech resources to her local fortress; she has not needed to since we lost power. I expect she will have trouble reallocating those resources. High-tech stuff requires good climate control, which we have at Mount Doom, but is very rare outside of here and the Courts.”

  “Excellent. I would love nothing more than to give her a surprise.” Tom grinned.

  Varn grinned widely. “We will once more have radar for monitoring incoming threats, as well as radio communication between commanders in the field and the TCC.” He chuckled evilly. “And I think they will find our anti-air and spacecraft artillery to be quite good at knocking demons out of the sky, as well as existence.”

  “The complex has that sort of heavy artillery?” Tom asked, surprised.

  “Yes, sir. We had been working on adapting force field generators we had liberated, but the war in Etterdam put that on hold and then we no longer had the power or resources.” Varn shook his head sadly. “We were probably within less than a decade of having force fields on top of the runic wards.”

  “Science and magic working together!” Tom marveled. He grinned and clapped Varn on the shoulder. “We shall carry on and rebuild everything!”

  Varn smiled, thrilled to finally begin the return to glory.

  ~

  “Reattach the saddles to the D’Wargs’ harnesses,” Virok ordered once they had returned to the wargtown and the large tent they had rented for the D’Wargs to rest in. Because the pavilions were designed for wargs, they were outfitted with water troughs and food troughs. D’Wargs did not need to eat, but since the food and water were included in the price, the D’Wargs had spent the last several hours eating, drinking and investigating the wargs.

  “It was just socializing,” Fed Tal told Tal Gor as they grabbed the saddles for their D’Wargs. They had left most of the harness on the D’Wargs and just detached the saddles and extra pieces of tack, such as weapon holders and saddlebags. Those extra pieces could be hooked and strapped into place quickly in the event a quick departure was needed.

  “What do you mean?” Tal Gor asked his tribemate.

  “A number of them mated,” Fed Tal said.

  “With wargs?” Tal Gor looked curiously at the other orc. “I wonder if they can interbreed?”

  “I don’t know, but if so, I pity whoever has to deal with the pups!” Fed Tal chuckled.

  “So did you watch, you pervert?” Tal Gor grinned.

  “Tal, trust me; everyone observed. It was so noisy and violent that it would have been impossible to miss,” Fed Tal said. “Pretty hot, actually.”

  Tal Gor shook his head at Fed Tal’s weirdness. He had to admit, warg mating rituals were interesting if one had never seen one, but they were not erotic to any rational person. Or at least, not to him.

  “Were any of the wargs brave enough to approach a female D’Warg?” Tal Gor asked.

  “No, they were too frightened of the D’Wargs. But a couple of the D’Warg bitches did manage to force themselves on male wargs.”

  Tal Gor laughed. “It figures! They’ve been stuck with the same partners for thousands of years!”

  Tal Gor and Fed Tal finished saddling their D’Wargs and walked with them out to the staging area.

  The staging area was about a thousand feet outside of the town. Zerg and Fed had marked off an area after the first wagonload of supplies had come back from the city. Nagh Felwraith, one of the D’Orcs, had stayed behind to help guard the supplies. D’Orcs were so new to the people of Murgatroy, they did not feel they would need too many guards to defend the supplies. Especially with a pack of twenty snarling and slobbering D’Wargs a thousand feet away.

  While saddling the D’Wargs, Fed Tal told Tal Gor that the orcs in the town had been more wary of the D’Wargs than Zerg. Or they had been up until he began winning too many drinking games. Naturally, neither Fed nor Zerg had mentioned that D’Orcs could not get drunk on glargh, ale, wine or anything else. After about a dozen orcs passed out, and a good number of the onlookers had lost more money betting than they’d spent on drinks, the wargtown orcs finally realized that Zerg and his infinite glargh-gut were a bigger threat to their wallets than the D’Wargs were to their hides. Fed Tal showed Tal Gor his now-rather-stuffed money pouch.

  Tal
Gor had laughed and clapped his friend on his back. “So while we were in town spending Lord Tommus’s treasure, you were out here making money?”

  Fed Tal was quite tipsy by this point and simply gave him a wide grin, as if he had been caught eating warg droppings.

  As they approached the staging area, they shifted their direction to come up beside Vespa, who was manipulating a large abacus.

  “So what’s the total haul?” Tal Gor asked.

  “Very impressive!” Vespa said. “We may want to come back here for more supplies at some point.”

  “Given that you are paying in gems and chunks of precious metal, I am pretty sure you will be welcome!” Tal Gor said with a grin.

  “I am sure we were taken advantage of, but we are in a hurry,” Virok commented drily as he walked by while arranging items for transport through the gateway.

  “Did you get all of what you needed?” Fed Tal asked.

  “A great deal. We managed to get a dozen and a half barrels of glargh, six barrels of ale and two barrels of wine. We also picked up two large sacks of ground salt, three sacks of cornmeal, four sacks of ground wheat and five sacks of oats.” She paused and looked up from her abacus, grinning. “The D’Wargs are going to be excited for us to make wargmeal for them.”

  “I thought the Abyss was a desert? Where do you get water?” Fed Tal asked.

  Vespa grinned. “It is. You were paying attention to our stories last night!” Then she mock frowned. “And apparently sober enough to remember them! As for the water, now that Lord Tommus has returned, the storm clouds and rain have returned to Mount Doom.”

  “Lord Tommus made it rain in the Abyss?” Tal Gor asked, awed.

  “Indeed he did. His power is as described in the legends. Glorious days lie ahead!” Vespa said before looking back to her abacus. “However, for this celebration, we will be using x-glargh, oats and meat to make the wargmeal.”

  “Lucky D’Wargs!” Fed Tal pounded his fist into the palm of his hand.

  “They are.” Vespa chuckled. “As far as inventory, we also got a case of large snake eggs and two cases of chicken eggs. A cask of sodium bicarbonate, that was a nice find! Or so I am told. I have no idea what it is,” Vespa said.