“Master Tayer will keep a watch on Fort Lowmount in any case so that he can alert us instantly if anything was to transpire. Our next concern will be closing the Gate when we have defeated the orcs. Master Pilk tells me that won’t be an easy task,” said Duke Angus taking turns to gaze at each man in the room.
“Once we take th’ fort, it should be easy nuff to guard’t ‘til the wizard finds a way,” spoke up General Ludko.
“True enough. They can be only sendin’ so much through at once ‘n we can cut ‘em down as soon as they show their ugly faces,” added King Buster.
“Let’s hope it’s as easy as you say. The next concern we should discuss is the rescue of any prisoners they may have. Decker saw no sign of them but mentioned that should they be in the city he saw, it’d be very difficult to attempt a rescue.” Duke Angus looked at the gloomy faces of both dwarves and imagined their thoughts of their lost kin. No doubt their hearts were heavy.
“Without knowing where they are or even if they still live, making any plans for their rescue right now is futile. Once we have control of their fort we could organise a more thorough search,” said Major Hillsworth after clearing his throat. Duke Angus noted all the others nodded their agreement — the dwarves quite enthusiastically.
“Very well,” said the duke, “so let’s discuss battle tactics.”
* * *
“Blood?” Cressida went pale so Decker guided her over to the closest chair and helped her sit down. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” Her voice was quiet and shaky.
“Because I had to report to the Duke urgently and I didn’t want you alone and worried as you are now.” Decker had rehearsed that answer in his mind many times on his way to Master Pilk’s house. “I’m sure they are fine, Cressy. There is no guarantee that it was them.”
“It’d explain why they didn’t leave a note. They wouldn’t have wanted us to come straight after them,” said Cressida, still in a shaky voice but with more volume this time, “and why they haven’t yet returned. I can’t believe they would be so foolish.”
“The boys miss their fathers very much, Cressy. The blood of their fathers flows thick in their veins as they would likely have attempted the same thing at their age,” said Pilk who had taken a chair for himself on the other side of the dining table. “I should have suspected as such and kept a closer eye on them.” This he said almost in a whisper.
“You can’t blame yourselves — either of you. Both of you have had lots on your minds of late and the appearance of these orcs has everyone out of sorts. I’m sure the duke and King Buster are making battle preparations right now. Once we have taken the orcs’ fort we can search harder for them on the orc world, that’s if they haven’t shown up already as captives in the orc fort.” Decker leant forward on the table, both palms face down on the hard surface, looking at Master Pilk and Cressida in turn.
“Decker is right Cressy. King Buster in particular will be extremely anxious to attack the fort. We should wait ‘til that happens before we do anything else. Decker has observed them holding captives in the fort before moving them on, so perhaps they’ll still be there when we take it.” Pilk looked at Decker as he said this, obviously seeking his authentication on the statement. Decker nodded. “Speaking of which, I really should return to the Castle in case I’m needed in the planning and I still have so much research to do. I have been reading the most interesting of books. If it is all true, it explains so much.”
Decker watched the wizard continue his ranting all the way to the front door. Once he had left, he sat down beside Cressida and put his arm around her.
* * *
Sylestra sat up, finally relenting to the fact that she couldn’t sleep. A single torch burnt low at the rear of the shallow cave. The dwarves were all fast asleep in their rope bonds thanks to the strong potion she had given them. It had taken two trips for her six strong guards to carry the twenty surviving dwarves to the cave; the orcs bred specifically for their strength and fighting ability were able to carry a dwarf over each shoulder.
When Sylestra first discovered that no dwarves had arrived on the new world of Ki’arantha after the great evacuation of Aleri, the mother world, she was extremely disappointed. Dwarves had always been very useful to her as great miners and their life force was ten times stronger than those of humans or orcs.
At the height of her power she had many thousands of dwarves as slaves, mining all kinds of metals and precious gems, forging and enchanting items of great power. When sacrificing them to Nefari and inhaling their life force, Sylestra would almost burst with power. Even when they were raised as undead, they proved to be mightier than the undead orcs and men.
Nearing the end of the times of the dragons wrath when the gods created the great gates to evacuate the world, Sylestra had to abandon her glorious kingdom in order to save her own life. Nefari had neither the knowledge nor the power to create a gate for her loyal worshippers and so Sylestra had had to locate a one and make her way safely to it, carrying with her the very orb containing a fragment of her god that she had brought to this world.
She started her journey with an army of many thousands but they were beset by a band of furious dragons on the way. Very few of them escaped the ensuing infernos. Even when those few reached the gate, they had to fight their way through the crowds on either side of it before they found safety on the new world.
Sylestra’s glorious kingdom was reduced to a few hundred orcs and humans — none of her dwarven slaves survived as the dragons’ fury focused on them. Had the dragons noticed her among the army, she likely wouldn’t have survived as she was the reason for their mighty wrath, but she had transformed into a black mist and rode the winds to safety.
She travelled some distance when she first arrived on Ki’arantha. Some of her human and orc slaves escaped along the way as she no longer had the numbers to keep them contained. She had released Nefari from the powerful artefact, but the goddess was reduced to a tiny portion of her former strength and had to remain in hiding from the gods of humans and orcs, so Sylestra’s power had also greatly diminished.
Upon finding a suitable site to start rebuilding her kingdom, Sylestra started an extensive breeding program; the strong were bred with the strong, the beautiful with the beautiful, the intelligent with the intelligent etc. Due to the small numbers, humans were forced to breed with orcs creating a new half-orc breed. Her kingdom once again started to flourish and as their numbers grew, so did the power of their goddess.
Sylestra shook the thoughts of those difficult years from her mind and smiled when she looked at her day’s catch. She was so fortunate to find a small patrol of dwarves and especially one containing two females. She could once again start breeding dwarf slaves.
It was not her primary objective of course, but an added bonus to her long term goals. Living a life of many thousands of years had made Sylestra a very patient woman. This world may not have been the one she was seeking, but it was certainly one full of potential. The times for her army to march against the Black Skull were here. Just then a magical gate formed in the centre of the cave and a moment later O’tukka emerged.
A Combined March
The trip down the river had been uneventful which Gerard was very happy about. The most dangerous part had been when they floated past Rakir; Gerard had seen archers on the battlements, but they had not fired and no pursuit was forthcoming. It was likely because the city was being guarded by a skeleton crew while the Red Axe assaulted the Black Skull at Qunik and they didn’t want to attract any attention.
Likely the same was true of Chimak, the large city on the southern shores of Blood Lake belonging to the Black Skull tribe. They had seen the city walls from a great distance as they floated the length of the large inland lake.
They had disembarked on the southern edge of that lake and proceeded into the forest, which Gerard knew to be the border of the Ta’zu tribe. Deep in the forest they made camp for the night. They lit no fires and made no n
oise above a whisper as they all realised they were deep in enemy territory.
Gerard drew a basic map in the soft dirt of the forest floor to give Major Isak a sense of their location and where they needed to go; Jeff had added details to the map that Gerard had forgotten about. Of the six men who had been captured on that first night of the orc invasion, only Gerard and Jeff were still alive. Between the two of them they endeavoured to share their knowledge of these orcs with the rest of the large group.
The leaders of the group all agreed that their best course was directly south from their current position. Jeff mentioned a mountain range on the south-eastern border of the Ta’zu tribe. They would use that as a guide, staying east of those mountains until they reached the Black Rock Canyon.
Both the Ta’zu and the Black Skull tribes had cities not too far from that border but Gerard couldn’t recall their names. That would be the most challenging part of their journey. If they could reach the Black Rock Canyon, they could follow that all the way east hopefully avoiding detection.
Their biggest problem was food and water. They managed to make a number of canteens by hollowing out some small lumps of wood with the few daggers they had with them. They discovered hives of an insect similar to the bee of Ka’ton only twice the size. With much effort and more than a few nasty stings they were able to extract some wax to seal their canteens. After filling them all with water from the lake, they sealed them with whittled caps.
While the canteens were being constructed, others went in search for anything edible. Plants, berries, nuts and fungus that looked fit for human consumption were all collected and brought back to be carried with them. Some things they were able to quickly identify whether it was safe or not, other things required some more careful and longer term testing. With eighty-two mouths to feed though, the gathered food would not last long. They hoped they could find more food along their journey. Hopefully there was a good amount of small streams and creeks that weren’t shown on the maps he had seen.
At mid-morning the group set off on a journey Gerard estimated would take five or six days, especially since they were nursing so many injured. Gerard’s leg throbbed with pain as he walked and he was one of the luckier ones.
* * *
The army of dwarves and men gathered outside the western gate of Arthea — eight companies of each for a total of sixteen hundred soldiers. Arthea was left guarded by a minimal amount of troops, while the dwarves left behind continued the construction of the northern bridge.
King Buster had sent a messenger back to Corwyn, the massive underground city of the Goldfist dwarves, giving orders for a further five companies of dwarves to meet them on the eastern edge of Bilwarks Grove. The dwarven king was eager for the revenge of his fallen and captured kin.
Decker’s last report of the orcs had them numbering around five hundred or so, but they would be entrenched and possibly reinforced if the united army could not overrun them quickly.
Pilk was in charge of his small contingent of eight wizards; Master Tayer being assigned to scout duties at Fort Lowmount and the visiting wizards that helped defend Arthea had returned home. Decker had still only observed the one orc shaman but Pilk was well aware how fast that could change.
If they had been normal orcs, numbers of four to one against a fort like this would prove to be a slaughter, but with these new orcs, nothing was certain. They still knew very little about them.
When Major Hillsworth and General Ludko were happy with the army’s formation, they began their slow march toward Bilwarks Grove.
* * *
Supreme Mistress Sylestra awoke as the muscled, naked man next to her stirred. Once O’tukka had brought her to the Palace in Chakun, she had immediately sent for her two best male lovers as the events of the day had excited her to a point that any attempt at sleeping would be futile. She had sent one away once she was done with him but allowed the other to stay with her for the remainder of the night.
Slipping out of bed and covering her nakedness with the silk nightdress which had been neatly hung from a corner post on her large extravagant bed, Sylestra walked over to the window and pulled back the drapes, letting the light of day into the darkened room. She immediately recognised that it must be around mid-morning. Her house staff had allowed her to sleep in, which she was thankful for.
But now she had so much to organise and she had already lost a good few hours in the day. The man in the bed lay there holding his head up with his arm admiring her. She was tempted to join him back in the bed but she shook that thought away. She had a war to prepare for.
One of her human maids entered the room after a polite knock, obviously noticing the extra light in the room alerting her that Sylestra was awake.
“Good morning supreme mistress. Would you like to break your fast up here today or in the dining hall?”
“In the dining hall and have General Jak’ho meet me there as soon as he is able.” The maid curtsied respectfully and left the room. Almost immediately, two more maids entered to help her get dressed.
She had not eaten two mouthfuls of her breakfast before her solid orc general arrived. Sylestra let him in immediately and beckoned for him to take a seat. He wore a heavy, brown leather cuirass that hung over his groin and thighs granting protection to the sensitive region. His muscled arms, however, were bare revealing the black tattoo of a reared snake on his biceps — the Ta’zu tribe’s emblem. He wore spiked leather gauntlets on both hands and heavy leather greaves that rose knee high and thumped hard against the tiled floor as he approached.
His hard, weather-beaten and heavily-tattooed face and his deep set black eyes made him look very fierce indeed. His two large tusks had been filed to sharp points and capped with tempered steel which he used as a ferocious weapon in battle, tearing flesh from his opponents.
“Have you eaten this morning, General Jak’ho?” Sylestra smiled at her own jest, knowing full well that just about everyone in her entire kingdom would have already eaten this day.
“Before the sun rose, supreme mistress.” Despite his comment she did notice him glance ever so briefly at the spread of food on the table.
“Well surely you must already be hungry again by now. Help yourself to the food, we have much to discuss.” After a curious look in her direction, the general removed his gauntlets, took a plate for himself and began filling it with food. “The most urgent action I want is for scouts to be sent to Izlalek, Namolak and Chimak.”
“We are going to war, supreme mistress?” asked the general as he shoved a slab of meat into his mouth. Sylestra had long ago stopped trying to teach orcs any table manners. They ate food in the same manner as they undertook every action in their life — aggressively.
“The Black Skull has something I want and the way I see it, that something is rightfully mine as I made its construction possible.” The smile on General Jak’ho’s face told Sylestra that he knew exactly what it was that she was talking about.
* * *
The long discussion with General Krak’too had gone better than Great Shaman O’tukka had thought it would. The general had liked his idea immediately and started adding his own details at once. O’tukka had been a bit wary telling the general too much about Supreme Mistress Sylestra, revealing to him only what he thought he needed to know.
General Krak’too had personally seen to it that no orcs were watching the Gate when it was time for him to take the supreme mistress back home. The general had toyed with the idea of capturing her and delivering her to the fierce one, but O’tukka fervently advised him against that action; she was not one to be underestimated.
The plan was a very risky one, but if it worked it would free him from the services of both the supreme mistress and the fierce one. He would be able to live his life the way he wanted to. If successful it would also greatly benefit General Krak’too who he had come to respect.
As he was sitting in his quarters refining the plan, he heard a commotion outside. He rose, walked over to his d
oor and opened it. He asked the first orc he saw what was happening. Apparently the humans and the dwarves were on their way. With a quickening of his heart, O’tukka realised he would soon find out if the first part of his plan would succeed.
* * *
Sarai had not used as much material on the dress she had made for the supreme mistress as what she reported. The excess material she had hidden away under a loose floorboard near her work station. If she was discovered doing this, she would be put to death by the unmerciful orcs, but she may not have that much longer to live anyway so it was worth the risk.
Whenever the orc guards were not hovering about, she collected the material and continued working on the design of her personal nightdress. Normally they had to make all their clothes from the material thrown into the large scrap bins and do so in their own time. Occasionally days were set aside where they were to make clothes for all the slaves, but those days didn’t come around often enough, leaving the slaves wearing some very worn out clothing.
Just once in her life Sarai wanted to wear something nice and feel important. She had thought to make a dress, but knew she wouldn’t be able to wear it outside her little house anyway. At least with a night dress she could wear it all night.
The left over material was scant, so her design had to allow for that. It would hang low from her shoulders, supported by two thin straps and end at around mid-thigh length. The material was joined by a crisscrossing ribbon, leaving the majority of her back exposed; her buttocks and thighs being the only area where the material met. The thought of wearing it for the first time excited her.
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