ORCS: Army of Shadows

by Stan Nicholls

  “Has he seen anything?”

  “Not so far. But Haskeer’s been needling him again, and it throws him off. That’s what I need to check on.”

  “All right. I’ll be with the kelpies if you want me.” She nodded to the far end of the deck where the sea horses were herded together. A bunch of grunts with buckets on ropes were hauling up water to douse them with.

  He finished by telling her, “You remember what I said about Pepperdyne.” Then he turned and walked away.

  He passed a stack of chests stowed nearby. What he didn’t notice was Standeven sitting on the deck behind them, chin resting on raised knees, listening.

  The rest of that day and most of the next passed without incident.

  They were into the afternoon when land was spotted. The kelpies grew excited in their rather stately way, and the band prepared to disembark.

  When they were close enough to see the island in detail, the old kelpie who had first befriended them was puzzled.

  “My folk are on the beach,” he rumbled.

  “What’s strange about that?” Stryke asked.

  “You don’t understand. My kin shouldn’t be cavorting openly in the sea, and certainly not in the daytime, for fear of the Gatherers.”

  “Could they have come and gone?” Jup wanted to know, his heart sinking.

  “If they had, you can be sure kelpies wouldn’t be enjoying themselves in broad daylight.”

  As they nosed in and dropped anchor, things became clearer. The kelpies on the beach were joined by a group of two-legged beings, waving frantically.

  “They’re… dwarfs,” Jup whispered, not daring to get his hopes up.

  He didn’t wait for the gangplank. Tossing a length of rope over the side he agilely shinned down it. Splashing knee-high through water, then onto the flaxen sand, he saw someone running towards him.

  Spurral flew into his arms.

  The following hours were filled with explanations and renewed camaraderie, for orcs and kelpies alike. At one point, Haskeer marched up to the couple, slapped Spurral heartily on the back and bellowed, “Well done! Always knew we’d find you.”

  Jup watched open-mouthed as he swaggered past.

  “Maybe he’s not so bad after all,” Spurral said.

  Haskeer barged his way to Stryke and asked, “Now can we get out of this place?”

  “Soon as we can.”

  “Good. Ceragan’s starting to look really good compared to some of the places we’ve been.”

  “Yeah, well, hold on. The stars didn’t get us there last time we tried. We have to work that problem out.”

  “That must have been something you did wrong, Stryke.”

  “If I did, I did it wrong a lot of times.”

  “So how we going to sort that one?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe —”

  “Excuse me,” Spurral interrupted, “but what about these dwarf survivors?” She waved a hand in their direction. They were sitting morosely by themselves further along the beach.

  “What about ’em?” Haskeer said.

  “We’ve got to take them home. Back to their island.”

  “Shit, can’t somebody else do that?”

  “Who? The kelpies aren’t a seafaring race.”

  Coilla nodded. “She’s right.”

  “Yes,” Stryke agreed. “We take them back. Then we’ll think about the stars.”

  “But we won’t think about them tonight,” Spurral announced. “The kelpies are laying on a celebration for everybody, and they’re keen on celebrations, I can tell you.”

  “And to spice it up a bit,” Coilla added, “I’ve got a little something here I found in a cabin on the goblins’ ship. Didn’t mention it before; thought it might be a surprise.” She took out a small black pouch, loosened its strings and poured some of the contents into her hand.

  The others crowded round and instantly recognised the heap of tiny pinkish crystals.

  “Pellucid,” Haskeer all but drooled.

  Coilla clamped her hand shut. “But only with the permission of our captain, of course.”

  “What do you say, Stryke?” Spurral wanted to know. “Do we deserve a little relaxation after all we’ve been through?”

  “There were a couple of times when crystal led us to some bad outcomes,” he replied, stern-faced. A smile cracked it. “But I don’t think this is going to be one of them.”

  25

  The celebration was good. It must have been, because most of those present would never be able to remember it.

  There was drinking, feasting, boasting and inane giggling. The latter was due to the pellucid, which bathed the proceedings in a dreamy, kaleidoscopic haze.

  A high point, for Wheam if no one else, came when the tyro, sober and without the benefit of crystal at that juncture, came to them excitedly. He was holding something.

  “Look what I found on the ship!” he exclaimed.

  “What’d ya say?” Haskeer mumbled, his eyes red pinpoints.

  “I thought that if Coilla found that crystal lightning on the ship there might be other things of value. And I found this!” Beaming, he held up the object.

  “Wha’issit?”

  “A lute! It’s not like any I’ve seen before, it’s a goblin one I suppose, not that you’d think those creatures would appreciate music, but you never know, do you, anyway it’s more or less the same as the sort I’m used to, so I thought —”

  “Aaarrghh! Talk plain. And slow.”

  “Ah. Yes. I found this lute.” He held it aloft once more, and wobbled it. “It’ll replace the one I lost. I can sing my ballads again.”

  “If I could get up, I’d kill you.”

  “So you don’t fancy hearing anything now then?”

  They say that even when Wheam started to run, Haskeer was still crawling after him.

  There were a lot of thick heads the next morning, and Dallog was kept busy tending minor wounds inflicted during the horseplay. But the band was accustomed to quick recoveries after revelry, and dunkings in the tepid brine, voluntary and otherwise, sobered the majority.

  Anxious as everybody was to be off, the kelpies insisted on a prolonged farewell ceremony complete with rambling speeches and numerous toasts. Though Stryke ordered that the latter should be in coconut milk as opposed to alcohol.

  They finally shipped out mid-morning.

  The journey back to the dwarfs’ island was without event, which at least gave the band a chance to fully recover. Jup’s spirits had soared. Not that much was seen of him and Spurral during most of the voyage. The only damp blanket was Standeven, unsurprisingly, who continued to brood when he wasn’t dogging Stryke’s footsteps.

  At first, their arrival caused something of a panic. The islanders assumed that the advent of a three-master meant another visitation by Gatherers. Once that was sorted, and it soaked in that the slavers had been defeated, there were joyful scenes. The Wolverines, partied out, accepted the accolades with fixed, clenched-toothed smiles.

  As soon as they could, Stryke and his principal officers slipped away. Pepperdyne accompanied them, and Standeven tagged on, like a dependant cur. They made their way up to one of the dead volcano’s lower ledges.

  Stryke surveyed the view. “Seems fitting that we should leave this world from the place where we entered it.”

  “And good riddance,” Haskeer offered.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Coilla said. “Just look at it. There are a lot worse places.”

  “To hell with it; I want to get back to Ceragan.”

  “We’re assuming we can get back. I mean, we didn’t intend being here.”

  “Remember what the kelpies said?” Spurral reminded them. “About there being islands occupied by orcs? If the stars let you down maybe you could make a life here. Perhaps we could even find an uninhabited island and —”

  “You’re forgetting something,” Stryke said. “Some of us have mates and hatchlings in Ceragan.”

  “Sorry. Of course
you have. I was being thoughtless. But —and don’t take this the wrong way —there should be a fallback plan if the stars don’t get you home.”

  “But we won’t know that until we try them,” Coilla reminded her. “And if they take us somewhere other than Ceragan, what’s the odds they’d bring us back here?”

  “It’s a good point, Stryke,” Dallog reckoned. “Surely the only real decision is whether we try using the stars or not.”

  “I know. My head’s full of it. But my instinct is to try. I want to do all I can to get back to my brood.”

  “I can understand that,” Jup said.

  “It gets my vote,” Haskeer chipped in.

  “I think you might have been right about it being me making a mistake, Haskeer,” Stryke admitted. “I must have set them wrong.”

  Coilla nodded. “And no wonder, given how rushed we were.”

  “Think you can get it right this time, Stryke?” Standeven wanted to know.

  “What’s it to you?” Haskeer sneered.

  “I just want to be sure we do it properly this time.”

  “We? What makes you think you’re included?”

  “You can’t just leave us here!”

  “Why not? We’re not your mother!”

  “We’ve been through all this,” Stryke returned sternly. “We’ve already said we’ll take the humans back to Maras-Dantia. I gave my word.”

  “What are we now,” Haskeer grumbled, “wet-nurses?”

  “I’ll have no more argument. It’s decided.”

  “Well, sorry to go on about it,” Jup put in, “but did we ever really resolve what happens to Spurral and me?”

  “We said you’d be welcome in Ceragan,” Coilla replied.

  “Yeah, and we appreciate it,” Spurral responded. “But with respect, I don’t know if we want to spend the rest of our lives in an orcs’ world.”

  “And you haven’t changed your minds about being in Maras-Dantia? You don’t want to go back?”

  Jup and Spurral exchanged a look. They shook their heads.

  “Why can’t they stay here?” Haskeer wanted to know, jabbing a thumb at them. “This is a place for dwarfs.”

  “It isn’t a dwarfs’ world,” Spurral explained, as though to a hatchling. “It’s a… dumping ground.”

  “Let’s stick to what we agreed,” Stryke decided. He indicated Pepperdyne and Standeven. “We take these two back to where we found ’em, in Maras-Dantia. Jup and Spurral can come with us to Ceragan.”

  “Then what?” Jup wanted to know. “For me and Spurral, I mean.”

  “We can try to figure out the stars, and the amulet. Maybe —”

  “Maybe we can find a way to send them to a dwarf world?” Coilla finished for him. “It’s a long shot, Stryke. What if we never —”

  “Can you think of anything better?”

  “No.”

  “Then that’s what’s on offer.”

  “This is all moot if we’ve no way of knowing the stars work,” Pepperdyne said. “There’s no point going round in circles.”

  Stryke nodded. “You’re right. We all need to cool off, and I need to think. We’ll try the stars again, but a bit later today, after I’ve had a chance to study them and you’ve all calmed down. Anybody object to that?”

  Nobody did.

  When everyone had dispersed, and Stryke had gone off somewhere quiet to try figuring out the instrumentalities and the amulet, Coilla and Pepperdyne found themselves alone.

  “This is a rare thing,” he remarked.

  “It is unusual not to be part of a mob, isn’t it?”

  “While it lasts. What’s the betting somebody’s going to barge in on us any minute?”

  “We could avoid that.”

  “How?”

  “These volcanoes are supposed to be riddled with caves. And the view from up there must be quite something. Fancy exploring?”

  “I’m game.”

  The climb was actually very gentle, so they went as far up as they could reach, reasoning that the higher they were the less likely they’d be to run into anybody else. Before long they found a cave and seated themselves just inside its cavernous mouth.

  Pepperdyne expelled an appreciative breath. “It’s pleasantly cool in here.”

  “Said it’d be good, didn’t I?”

  “What’s really good about it is having the chance to spend some time with you. You know, without anybody wanting something carried or trying to kill us.”

  She smiled. “And I’ve got something that should brighten things.” She pulled the small black pouch from her pocket. “I kept some of this back.”

  “The crystal?”

  “Yeah. I noticed you didn’t have any last night.”

  “I’ve never had any. I’ve heard about it, of course, but never really saw the need.”

  “It’s not something you need; it’s just nice now and again. You’re in for a treat.” She began filling a clay pipe, then stopped. “If you want to, that is.”

  “Why not? And I’d rather do it without a crowd watching my first time.”

  She got the pipe going, took a lungful and passed it to him. They felt the effect almost instantly.

  After a little while she asked, “How is it?”

  “Not how I imagined.”

  “Is that good, bad…?”

  “Mellow. Relaxing.” He took another pull on the pipe, held it, let it out. “So… ges, yood. Uhm. I mean, yes… good.”

  “Your face!” She started to giggle.

  “What about it?”

  “Just looks funny, that’s all.”

  “You look pretty comical yourself.” Then he caught the giggles too.

  They laughed until they shook, then fell back and sprawled helplessly on the ground.

  When the laughter subsided a tranquil mood came over them. They lay staring at the cave’s roof, admiring the patterns reflected sunlight made on the soft stone.

  At length, Coilla said, “After today…”

  “Yes?”

  “It looks like we might not see each other again.”

  “I was trying to put that out of my thoughts.”

  “Me, too. But it keeps creeping back.”

  “Mind you, if Stryke can’t make the stars behave maybe you will be stuck with me. Somewhere.”

  “I know Stryke. Somehow he’ll make them work. Even if it takes a hundred tries. He’s stubborn.”

  “A hundred different world like the ones we saw before? Doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  “But if he does make them work, that’s it. You’ll be in Maras-Dantia and I’ll be back in Ceragan.” She turned her head and regarded him. “I’ll miss you. You’ve been a good comrade in arms.”

  “Coming from an orc, I take that as a high compliment.”

  “It’s meant to be. We fight well together. That’s important to my kind. Particularly for a —”

  “For a what?”

  “Nothing. Tongue running away with me there. Expect it’s the crystal.”

  “Is it?”

  “Would you do something for me, Jode?”

  “What?”

  “Scratch my back. It’s itching like hell in this heat.”

  They laughed.

  “Sure,” he said. “Give it here.”

  She sat up and he commenced scratching.

  “Hmmm, that’s good. This isn’t something you can get just anyone to do, you know.”

  “Then I’m honoured.”

  “Bit higher. Yes, there. Aaaahh. Nice.”

  The scratching turned to a gentle massaging. The massage became a series of caresses. She turned her face to his.

  They kissed.

  26

  It was nearly evening when Stryke emerged from the longhouse the dwarf elder had put at his disposal. He had ordered the band to gather on the beach, ready for what they hoped would be an initial hop to Maras-Dantia. But when he got there not everyone was present.

  “Where’s Coilla?” he asked.


  “No idea,” Jup reported. “Pepperdyne and Standeven are missing, too.”

  “Words I’ve been longing to hear,” Haskeer said.

  “Don’t start that again,” Stryke told him.

  “Well, if the pair of ’em got left behind it’d be no great loss.”

  “But it’s not like Coilla to miss a roll call.”

  “To be fair,” Jup said, “I don’t think she’s been seen since we were all together earlier. Chances are she didn’t know about your order to be here now.”

  “Anybody seen Coilla lately?” Stryke wanted to know. None of them had. “Give it a couple of minutes, Jup, then start the roll call. If she’s not here by the time you’re done I’ll send out a search party.”

  Jup nodded and set to getting the ranks into order.

  Not far off, on the other side of the volcano, Coilla and Pepperdyne were climbing down from the cave. They turned a corner on the narrow path and saw the beach.

  “Shit,” she said. “Looks like Stryke’s mustered the band. They must be getting ready to leave. He’ll kill me for missing the roll. Come on!”

  “Wait!”

  “What is it?”

  “Down there.” He pointed to a spot further along the beach and just round a bend. “That’s Standeven.”

  “What the hell’s he doing sitting out there?”

  “Who knows? He’s been behaving very oddly lately.”

  “Doesn’t he always?”

  “Not usually this much.”

  “You know, Jode, this could be a golden opportunity for you to dump him.”

  “What, leave him here?”

  “Doesn’t he deserve it?”

  “Well, yes. But… No, I can’t do it.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I mean, how could I inflict him on those innocent dwarfs?”

  She laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Jode: you’ve got values. Even if they are wasted on a rat like Standeven.”

  “You get to the band. I’ll go and fetch him.”

  “Don’t be long. There are some who’d like to see you two left behind.”

  “Would Stryke allow that?”

  “Don’t look so alarmed. Of course he wouldn’t. Just don’t keep him waiting.”