Delvers LLC- Surviving Ludus

by Blaise Corvin (ed)

  When he’d first heard Smartstrong talking to his companions, Peacehatchet had been too weak and dazed to call out. It had taken some time for him to pull himself together and ignore the pain in his shoulder. From that point, it had taken him hours to focus beyond the pain and the struggle to breathe before he finally found the strength to drag himself from under the corpses of his people.

  Tartooth forgive him, he placed his survival over the prayers of the dead he should have been performing. He soothed his conscience with the hope that Smartstrong had already given his fellow warriors words to carry their souls to the afterlife and that they would receive mercy from Tartooth once there. Still, it nagged at him, and he would make the prayers as soon as he was strong enough. Technically, they were supposed to be done before one left the field of battle, but his comrades would get their due even if it killed him.

  Peacehatchet wriggled and wormed until he felt cool night air tickled his forearm, and he could see his mottled blue flesh in the moonlight. It took him another hour of crawling and wiggling before he finally managed to free his upper torso from the pile of bodies. What his eyes beheld in the wan moonlight tore out his heart. His people had been massacred to nearly the last ork. In all honesty, he was surprised that he was still alive. His best guess was that the pressure from the corpses atop him prevented him from bleeding out. Even in death the Plains People rallied to a brother’s aid. He wanted to weep for the fallen but could not find tears of sadness. At the moment, his eyes were blurred with tears of pain.

  Had he not heard Smartstrong and others as they passed his supposedly dead body, he would have thought them all lost to the ravagers. He let out a keening wail, or at least tried to; he was exhausted and could barely breathe so what actually resounded in the night sky was a sobbing whimper that eventually curtailed into a whine. He was not proud of himself, but the sight of his people so broken and bloodied shattered his soul. He was alone. He was certain that Smartstrong would return to perform the rites of the dead, rites that Peacehatchet could not properly perform. He was too weak. Unfortunately, Peacehatchet had no idea of how long it would take for the others to come back, or even if they would be able to return to do their duties. For all he knew it was possible they’d been killed after they’d left.

  Alone and wounded in a hostile world was not a good situation. It had been hard enough to eke out a living here when they’d arrived with practically nothing and had been forced to rely on primitive weapons for survival. At least then, they’d had numbers on their side. Now he was alone.

  As Peacehatchet waited and thought, he began to doubt that Smartstrong would come back. It would be impossible to hold, let alone rebuild, Yanbei Cavern with a handful of warriors. No, his leader, he decided, had gone to look for safer ground. He prayed to Tartooth that they found other people of the plains. Smartstrong could compete for leadership if they located others of their kind, and if he failed then at least he would die in the company of his brothers.

  Peacehatchet was not only alone, but he was wounded as well. His lifespan on this world was now measured in minutes and hours unless he acted quickly, so the prayers for his comrades would have to wait. For the once, his survival took precedence. It scared him, but there was only one thing that he could think of that would help him. Something that only he knew about, something wrong.

  ***

  Months earlier, but still on this same unfamiliar world, Peacehatchet had been on a patrol, a perimeter check. This patrol was one in which they would go out as far as they could but still be within the confines of their territory. Their mission was to seek out intruders, kill them if they found them, and once dead, drag their bodies back to the kitchens. Opportunities to hunt wildlife were also meant to be taken. It was a standard scout-and-forage foray, but this time it had been different.

  His squad had consisted of himself and four others; there had been more but they had died to various events and had yet to be replaced. Peacehatchet was not the leader of his squad; he was for the lack of a better term, a grunt. Their team consisted of himself, their leader, Singblade, and other grunts including Hardfist, Goodeye, and Wisetusk. They were a motley band and were admittedly not as disciplined as they could have been. They were four hours into the bush at the furthest range of their lands when they ran across a pair of Areva. The two were huddled over a small box and muttering to one another, oblivious to the Plains People as they had approached. They had looked delicious.

  One was male, he had a wiry frame and seemed frail; his lankiness had made him look sleek and swift but not imposing in the slightest. His companion, a female, had had the most startling orange eyes. Peacehatchet remembered this because she had looked right at him a second before the dart from his atlatl pierced one, killing her instantly. Her body had plopped over the top of the small wooden box; her death had made barely a sound.

  Hardfist, preferring the more up-close-and-personal method of attack, had charged from the woods at the male. The others had watched as the Areva swept upwards in a motion so fluid it would have made water jealous, and Hardfist came to an abrupt halt. He had also come to an abrupt end, as the male shoved a bronze blade under Hardfist’s chin, driving the weapon neatly into his brain.

  Moving as surely as the wind, the Areva had practically floated towards the ork’s forest position. The Areva’s arm cracked like a whip and Peacehatchet saw a dagger sprout from Singblade’s eye. Goodeye and Wisetusk both drew their gladii and stepped boldly forward as Peacehatchet readied another dart. He had his axe still hanging from his belt if he needed it, but preferred to keep his distance from the pale ghost-like blur. The Areva had been like a screaming meteor entering the atmosphere and had just separated Wisetusk from his gladius.

  The fact that the Areva had also separated the hand holding the weapon from his brother’s arm was a huge factor in Peacehatchet’s decision to stay as far from the madman as possible.

  Goodeye’s long hair had broken free from its ponytail as he dodged the gladius that used to belong to Wisetusk. The hair erupted like ash from the heart of a flaming volcano and flew into the ork’s face. Blue-toned skin with a nice brown mottling was soon covered with blood. Wise enough to not give his opponent a chance to get close to him, Peacehatchet let fly another dart.

  The Areva, either unaware of his presence, or certain of his skill had stopped after Goodeye fell to the ground dead, his back towards Peacehatchet. Possessing no small amount of skill himself with the atlatl, Peacehatchet’s dart flew true and struck the male in the back of the skull. The impact drove him to his knees, his hands reaching for but not coming close to the back of his head. Peacehatchet could hear the man taking in gulps of air. Silent as a shadow the ork stepped from the brush, bringing his namesake hatchet to bear. Looking at the bodies of his brothers he let a smile of satisfaction grow over his tusks; their vengeance was at hand.

  His hand had swept out in a great arc, his blade whistling neatly as it cleaved through the air. Though not forged of steel, or a more advanced metal, it had a keen edge; the axe lopped off the Areva’s right hand and buried itself into the enemy’s head. Crimson blood stained the hated Areva’s hair, crimson fluid flowing out gently but steadily around the axe. This surprised Peacehatchet. Most times a blow to such a location would result in a shower of blood. Not caring how the man died, he pulled his hatchet from his foe and kicked his back so that he fell facedown in the dirt like the animal he was. The rest of the universe considered his people to be worse than vermin and claimed that they were not intelligent. This was a lie. His people were conquerors, and the conquered always maligned those that defeated them. If they wanted to treat orks as being beneath them, then he would show them no respect. Contempt was his gift for them. Contempt and an axe.

  Mission accomplished, Peacehatchet lazily meandered over to the woman’s body. He rolled her over, curious to see what they had been looking at. The box was a strong hardwood that had been stained crimson; it had a small latch on the front that was not locked, but wa
s flipped upward. The ork lifted the lid and scanned the contents inside.

  Had he been holding the container he would have dropped it. The lid had snapped shut as he winced backward, a slight hint of panic in his eyes. He knew what was inside. Anyone who had spent any time on Ludus would recognize a Dolos orb when they saw it, even if they had never laid eyes on one before. Even in the wilds, his home, word of the devices had spread like a virus. They were objects of power. The power of a god other than Tartooth; a god that had taken them from their homeworld and placed them on this awful world.

  Peacehatchet stared at the jewelry box for some time. He barely flinched or even blinked. His gaze never wavered from its location. He was aware that the dead around him would attract predators, but he was frozen in place. The implications overwhelmed him. There was not one Dolos orb inside the wooden container, but two.

  He did not know if the orbs would even work on one of his kind, but their value was still incalculable. He was a nobody, but one of those orbs might make him into something. . . .more. Two would make him greater than Smartstrong. He could become a leader of his people. He could take them from the Yanbei Cavern, out of the bowels of Ludus and into lands that were fertile and full of game. Perhaps, he realized, they might even find new plains to roam.

  Or, he could give the orbs to Smartstrong. Technically, Smartstrong was the chieftain, and all treasure procured on food runs or scouting patrols were to go to him. He could then decide whether to keep or distribute the things that were found. The decision was out of Peacehatchet’s hands. The orbs, by Plains People law, belonged to Smartstrong, but he just couldn’t bring himself to reconcile that fact with his desires. The orbs called to him. Their siren song was soft and nearly silent but carried the weight of a black hole.

  He resolved to take the orbs back and hold them for a time, just until he could decide what to do with them. Peacehatchet bent over, picked up the jewelry box, and slipped it into his shoulder bag. He left the bodies, all of them, and began to concoct a tale about being ambushed by some strange monsters. The corpses would be gone by morning; something would eat them. There would be no evidence to disprove his words and his life would resume in another patrol squad.

  ***

  That had been weeks and weeks ago and he still hadn’t made a decision. He’d left the box hidden neatly in the locker at the foot of his bed. It had called to him every time he’d lain down to rest, and it was all he could do not to eat the orbs and take their power for himself. This even made sense to him, as many Plains People legends included the eating of power.

  During the day, when he was away from the box he resigned himself to giving them to Smartstrong, but the closer he got the more he wanted them. Both of them. They were not to be shared.

  He could not resist them no matter how hard he tried. He berated himself for his weakness daily, but he could not give them up.

  He’d been correct in his assumption about his story about the patrol. As far as the others were concerned it was a sad loss, but no one went looking for the dead, and so the Areva’s treasure had become his own.

  But now, alone, wounded, bleeding, and abandoned he prayed that the horrific combatants that had attacked them had overlooked his secret stash. He doubted that they would have wanted anything they thought he would cherish, and an hour later he confirmed this after having crawled to his bunk. The invaders had completely ignored everything in this room. Nothing had been disturbed. Peacehatchet thanked Tartooth and flipped his trunk over, spilling its contents on the ground. The box practically slid into his hand.

  His left arm was practically useless, so he flipped it open with his right hand, and grabbed an orb. He stared at it. The sphere looked tarnished, as if it had been on Ludus for a very long time. He found it impossible to believe that no one had ever used it, but then had to admit that he’d held onto it for a lengthy stretch of time, and probably would have continued to hold them until he was killed in some late-night patrol. It was improbable but not impossible.

  Peacehatchet didn’t think about it or pause to ponder the ramifications of his actions. The only thing he knew about Dolos orbs was that you had to swallow them. He didn’t stop to consider whether the orbs would work for one of his race.

  He popped it in his mouth in the manner a Terran would a fruit, and gulped it down. It was small in his mouth and carried a tinny, but appealing flavor. Then for good measure, he followed suit with the second. What was it going to do, kill him twice? He didn’t think so, and he didn’t care about the possible ramifications of using it. His arm was bad and as far as he was concerned he was a dead ork crawling. Either the orbs gave him power, or he died. That was the end of it.

  The crawl to his bunk had taken a lot out of him. Every movement led to him losing more and more blood. If he’d had to go another twenty feet he would have just passed out from blood loss and quietly bled to oblivion. He was so drowsy that he could barely keep his eyes open, and all he could think of was that he wanted the power to get his revenge on those responsible for the slaughter of his people. He wanted a reckoning to take place. He desired power enough to place him in the position of judge, jury, and executioner. He wanted guidance in his revenge. He wanted to know how to make these things happen.

  Then he shut his eyes and drifted to sleep.

  A Guiding Hand, Chapter Two

  When Peacehatchet next opened his eyes he found himself back on the plains, chest-high in grass the color of liquid lava. The red sun made the grass look as if it were afire, a great sweeping expanse of smoldering flame. He could smell the muskallo, hulking hairy horned ruminates that could crush the Plains People to pulp and never even notice. The creatures were in the distance and he could hear their bleats. The massive bovines dwarfed him and swept across the burning sea of grass in waves of thousands. He was home.

  A slap to his right tusk knocked him to the ground. Spittle and a tooth, probably a bicuspid, shot from his mouth. He struck the ground with a clap like dropping a rock down a well. He lay there a moment, unsure of what had just happened. White dots filled his eyes and danced in his vision, obscuring his view of the sky and the grass around him.

  Without warning, he was hoisted off the ground by his left arm. His vision was cleared by a mind-numbing jolt of pain. Tears welled up in Peacehatchet’s eyes and then streamed down his face. Then it felt like his heart stopped when he realized that he was looking into the face of Tartooth. His god, great and terrible as he was, filled his world and darkness surrounded them. In the end, all that remained was Tartooth and darkness.

  “What were you thinking?” the scarred and terrifying god asked him earnestly, voice gruff. “Dammit, I don’t even know if this is allowed.” The one-eyed god looked skyward, even though there was no sky. Tartooth shrugged. “Looks like you are all clear, so no big deal. I thought you were going to die for swallowing one of the orbs. I’m still connected to the source, you know. It seems like someone is interested in what one of your people will do with me. You just got lucky.” The god paused and added with a stern and serious face, “Far luckier than you will ever know. Wow.”

  Peacehatchet looked into Tartooth’s face, which was exactly as he would have expected the god to appear. One eye had been torn out and was left open and exposed. The tusk below that eye was broken and cracked, and a deep scar ran from the empty socket to his upper lip, a faint remembrance of some past blow that had only managed to wound him. His skin was green with age, mottled with orange spots. His hair long, brown, and unwashed, leaving it a tangled mess. His body was bulky and huge, and like his face was a map of faded scars—reminders of past victories and fallen foes.

  “Tartooth,” Peacehatchet whispered in awe.

  The god sighed. “No, you idiot. I’m not Tartooth, just a representation of him. It was about the only thing in your animalistic mind that wasn’t an actual person. Orks don’t have a lot of imagination, do you?” He dropped Peacehatchet unceremoniously and let him land in a crouch.

  Peacehatc
het looked at him quizzically, not understanding a thing he’d just been told.

  Tartooth rolled his eye. He grimaced and then spit. A gob of yellow snot landed at Peacehatchet’s feet, who pretended not to notice.

  “Listen. Most races have something called entertainment, in which they create heroes, gods, monsters, that sort of thing.” He stopped and shook his head. “We orbs draw on these unreal representations to present ourselves to those brave enough to use us. All you had rattling around in your skull was an idea of what you think Tartooth looks like,” the false Tartooth said. “By the way,” he said nonchalantly as he turned his open palms in towards himself and lowered them from his head to his abdomen, “the actual Tartooth looks nothing like this.”

  Peacehatchet said nothing. He just stared at the false god in awe and puzzlement.

  Tartooth face-palmed. Frustration festering and then pouring from every fiber of his being, the orb representative blurted, “Here’s the deal. It’s my job to guide you and give you advice that helps you grow in power and stay alive. You were doubly lucky, the first orb you ate was an experimental one that has been lost for a long time and isn’t a typical orb. Had you eaten the other one first you would have died. Truly, the odds of you surviving your stupidity were incredibly long, but yet here we are. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  Peacehatchet signed no, he didn’t.

  Fake-Tartooth sighed. “Swallowing two orbs at once, or even two orbs at all is usually a death sentence. There’s a tiny chance it’ll work, but even then it’s usually not worth it.” When Peacehatchet just blinked, the god said, “Don’t worry about it. Just know you’re lucky to be alive.”

  “The bad news,” he continued, “is that you are an ork. Everyone and their mother is going to want to stomp you like a crackroach,” Tartooth said, shuddering as he mentioned the nine-legged stinging insects. “If you die, I die, so my job just became more difficult. Hell, whoever it was that thought it might be fun to see an ork wield an orb, be it Dolos or one of his High Priestesses, might change their mind at any second and decide to off you. In other words, the whole world is against you. More so, now that you are orb-Bonded.”