Through the cracks I saw the castle kitchens, busily roasting an aurochs haunch in the least sanitary conditions imaginable. I found the slave pens (empty, thankfully), the barracks where off-duty guards fought and gamed, the tribe's meager treasury, and even the chieftain's harem—a sight that I pray to the gods I never see again. At last, high in the topmost tower, I came across the orc lord's sleeping chambers.
Then all I had to do was wait.
Chief Kroghut is hardly the forgiving sort.
To the chieftain's credit, he didn't take any chances. The guards remained on full alert all that night and most of the next before finally deciding that I'd escaped and gone fleeing into the dark. Even so, the chieftain posted two guards at the foot of his bed to watch over him as he slept that night.
They did a good job, too. They never took their eyes off him, not even when the faint puff of magic sand from a hidden passage closed those eyes for them. As the guards slumped unconscious to the floor, I quietly swung open the secret door and padded over to the massive bed where Chief Kroghut slept, the sacred Broken Spine standard propped up behind the headboard. Pressing the point of my dagger deep into his jowls, I rapped sharply on his forehead.
"Rise and shine, Chiefy," I whispered cheerfully in Orc.
He came awake fast, and only my hand on his head kept him from spitting himself on my dagger before he realized the situation.
"Shh...." I cooed, stroking his warty scalp. "You don't want to do that yet. Now: I need a token of yours to get me through Urgir. Where is it?"
The orc gave a grunting laugh.
"You think it's that easy? That I'll just hand one over and let you walk away? Think again, pinkmeat."
I pressed the dagger farther into his quivering wattle. "Are you sure that's your answer?" I asked.
The orc's dark skin paled a little, but he still managed to spit on my shirt.
"Kill me if you want, but my tribe will take you before you've made it five miles. And even if you got to Urgir, you'd be free meat without my mark. And I'm not going to give it to you."
I glanced around the room. Even if I knew what I was looking for, it would take hours to search through the detritus, and even then I had no guarantees that what I sought was here. Piles of clothes and trophies, weapons and other loot lay stacked everywhere, but no sign of the tokens Joskan had spoken of. Beneath my hands, the orc saw my consternation and smirked.
"Fair enough," I said, releasing him long enough to grab the Broken Spine banner. "Then this will have to do." With both hands, I brought the standard down hard on the orc's meaty scalp, snapping the haft and putting him back to sleep. Taking the now-significantly-shorter banner, I crawled back into the secret shaft and began to descend.
I had to move fast. Soon the orcs above would come to their senses, and once they did, they would no doubt tear the castle stone from stone in their eagerness to find me.
So I figured I'd help them.
Farther and farther the shaft sank, until finally the ladder ended in a long, musty corridor. By my estimation, I was down at the level of the castle's foundation, level with the dungeons. And sure enough, next to the ladder was the first firepoint.
Let it never be said that the soldiers of Lastwall weren't practical. While it may have been beneath them to actually salt the earth—not that the orcs would have cared at all, being disinclined toward agriculture—they generally knew better than to leave their abandoned fortress sitting around as spoils for their conquerors. That this firepoint had remained unused bespoke reckless optimism on the part of the castle's former commander, or else the keep's overrunning had been too quick for anyone to think of it.
Regardless, the straw was still dry. Tucking the Broken Spine standard under my arm, I picked up the waiting flint and steel and struck them together. Sparks flew, and the straw caught. As I watched, the tinder began to burn merrily, the fire spreading back into the stone alcove and out of sight. I took a brief moment to light a waiting torch off of the fire, then moved forward down the tunnel.
I passed three more firepoints as I went, and each time my torch set the straw ablaze. By the last, I was all but running. In my mind, I saw the fire spreading upward into the castle, the eager flames consuming the packed straw that lay hidden inside every stone wall, catching the timbers, spreading to the roof. Indeed, the tunnel conducted sound well, and as I listened I began to hear a steady, mounting roar, the combined rumble of a thousand pops and cracklings. Above me, something exploded—perhaps the flames had found the orcs' stores of lamp oil. Yet before I had cause to worry, the tunnel turned outward, and I began to ascend.
I emerged from a turf-covered trapdoor to the east, just out of bowshot of the castle walls. Inside them, the fire was working fast—roofs collapsed, ancient stone crumbled in the heat, and walls fell as their supporting timbers were consumed. Burning orcs flung themselves screaming from windows. I stood there for a long moment, knowing I should be on my way yet unable to tear myself from the beauty of the fire against the starlit sky, the way the light from the flames blended with the first fingers of the dawn. And then, among the shouts and curses, I heard a familiar voice.
I kept my profile low as I approached, my sword at the ready, but none of the panicked orcs even noticed me as I slunk through the eastern gate. Nearby one of the main structures had collapsed violently, filling the courtyard with flaming debris, and what orcs I saw upright were making their way quickly to the keep's western end, which was not yet completely lost. The field was mine. I straightened and looked around.
He was lying face-up in the grass of the courtyard, pinned to the ground by an enormous burning timber across his waist. I was almost on top of him before he recognized me.
"Eando!" Joskan cried, his voice ragged with pain. "Eando, help! Please!" He thrust hopelessly at the beam crushing his legs, but was unable to get sufficient leverage to budge it. I stood over him, a silent silhouette. His eyes met mine, and beneath his sloping brow they were wet with tears.
"Please..." he whispered.
There are many measures by which to judge a man, but how he treats those who have wronged him is chief among them. Helping Joskan up was the right thing to do, the only ethical choice.
But I didn't.
Instead I leaned low over the burning timber and rubbed my hands together, warming them over the flame.
"Sorry, Joskan," I said. "Nothing personal."
Then, with the burning towers falling in noisily behind me, I hoisted my new standard and began the long, lonely walk to Urgir.
Appendix: Orc Tribes
The Hold of Belkzen has no centralized government. Instead, the region is populated by dozens of orc tribes of various sizes, constantly warring and forming strategic alliances. Each is ruled by a chieftain or warlord, though very rarely a pair of brothers or equally matched warriors might grudgingly share rule. Most of these tribes are nomadic, occasionally staking territories but changing them at will to reflect the migration of aurochs and other food sources. The exception to this is the lucky clan whose savvy leader manages to hold a fortress or settlement, such as Grask Uldeth of the Empty Hand who rules Urgir, or Tulluk Clovenface and his Haskodars who are currently ascendant in Blisterwell.
An orc is fiercely loyal to its tribe, if not necessarily to any particular member, and while intertribal mating is common, females are generally taken from their male relatives by force and absorbed into their mate's tribe. Tribal names are almost always graphic and intended to strike fear into their opponents, and prominent orc tribes in Belkzen include the Murdered Child, Empty Hand, Haskodar, One Eye, Cleft Head, Broken Spine, Gutspear, Twisted Nail, Skull Eater, Wingripper, Black Sun, and Blood Trail tribes.
Pink Like Me
By James L. Sutter
17 Lamashan, 4707 ar
Belkzen is a hard land, and each day I'm here, I grow harder as
well. A year ago, the sight of Joskan's face as he lay pinned beneath the burning timber, his screams as I turned my back, would have haunted me, the guilt almost unbearable. Now his name is already fading, erased further with each shuffling footfall, buried beneath each puff of sun-scorched dust. It's a terrible thing for a man to grow cold. But I'm managing.
For several days following the fire, I had walked east across the Hold's sparse fields, digging myself shallow trenches to sleep in during the day and traveling by night, silent as a ghost. With Joskan gone, there was no longer any need to make noise. I ate, I slept, and I followed the wayfinder. That was all.
Now, however, things were changing. Looming out of the rolling grasslands, a vast and white-walled city rose from the earth like a many-layered cake, tier upon tier of stone buildings and monuments forming a mountain that glimmered in the morning sun. Once, I knew, this had been Koldukar, one of the great dwarven Sky Citadels, massive fortresses built when the stout folk first emerged onto Golarion's surface. Now it bore another name, one bestowed by the great orc warlord Belkzen himself: Urgir, meaning "First Home." Several times during my approach, I curved well out of my way in order to triangulate headings with the wayfinder and see if there might be some way to avoid passing through its walls, but all to no avail.
Fortunately for me, most of the caravan traffic entering and leaving the city appeared to be doing so to the north, via the vast dried riverbed known as the Flood Road. Standard or no, I didn't trust the goodwill of the residents just yet, and I kept well clear of the occasional dust cloud kicked up by travelers as I skulked to within bowshot of one of the main gates, breaking up my profile by keeping to the tallest grasses. Finally, though, the ground turned to packed dirt, and I was left with few options. Holding the tattered standard of the Broken Spine clan crosswise above my head, I walked quickly and purposefully toward the small group of orcs lounging next to the monolithic stone doors of the gatehouse.
It took a moment for them to register what they were seeing, and I had covered half the ground between us by the time they had pulled themselves upright on their spears, sneering and pointing. In terms of appearance, they were much the same as the orcs of the Broken Spine clan, but their spears and armor appeared to be in better repair—perhaps pickings were better in the city. In addition, each bore a breastplate adorned with a crude painting of a black fist. I approached and stopped just short of skewering range.
"Ho there! I am a trader and emissary seeking entrance to the city," I said, not caring that the claim was ludicrous, given my meager pack.
One of the orcs snorted.
"In's not the hard part, pinkskin," he laughed. "Out's more'n your worry."
"Nevertheless, you will let me pass," I said.
His face hardened at my tone, and he started forward. "Maybe a piece at a time," he growled, but before he could get farther, a shadow dropped over him, and a monster stepped out from behind the curtain wall.
Now I could see why the orcs had seemed so lackadaisical in their guard duty. The ettin that emerged from the shadows of the gatehouse was nearly as tall as the fortifications themselves, towering above its companions. Almost completely naked, the shambling behemoth had vaguely porcine features, seemingly a grotesque blending of orc and giant. More disturbing than its stature, however, were its two heads—one, apparently the dominant, stared straight at me with rheumy eyes, while the other stared off into space and drooled. Around the neck of the former swung a pendant bearing the black hand symbol. The beast hefted two spiked clubs, each thicker than my chest.
"Whossat?" It gurgled.
The orcs, who had been confident a moment before, were still snickering, but now they backed slowly away to leave a direct path between me and the giant.
"Pinkskin come to make trouble, Wargus," one of them called. "Squish him, yeh?"
The ettin looked back at me, obviously sizing up how much trouble something my size could be. Taking the initiative, I stepped forward.
"I'm just a trader seeking entry. By the laws of your city, you must let me pass."
The giant perked up. "Token?" it asked.
I held up the broken standard, and the giant's brows furrowed like a stymied toddler.
"Not token," it grunted, raising its clubs to swing.
"No," I continued, striding boldly forward, bloodstained banner raised. "And I don't need one. You recognize this banner, and you know what it means. To let it touch an enemy's hand would shame the entire Broken Spine clan, and they'd all die to defend it. Yet here I am, unscathed. Obviously, I have their blessing. Tokens would be redundant."
One of the orcs started to speak, but I ignored him and pressed on, eyes still locked with ettin, who appeared uncertain once more.
"More importantly, you know what the penalty is for disobeying the lord of Urgir. So as I see it, you have two choices: You can let me pass, and get back to squeezing travelers for bribes, or you can continue to stand in my way and see what happens when the ones who gave you that," I used the standard to gesture at the badge around his neck, "find out you waylaid a foreign emissary with official business under the protection of the Broken Spine." I stopped moving, close enough now to smell the giant's pungent reek of sweat and livestock, craning my neck to look up at his two heads. With both hands, I held the standard horizontally between us, its haft flat against the ettin's belly.
"Now choose," I said, and shoved.
To my surprise, the mountain of greasy flesh fell back, moving once more into the shadow of the gatehouse.
"Pass," it growled. Behind me the orcs snorted in astonishment, but seemed unwilling to contradict their massive idiot guardian. Unhampered, I moved through the gate and into the teeming streets of Urgir.
One would have thought that passing through Urglin would have prepared me for what I found, but in fact the opposite was true. Whereas Urglin was squalid through and through, a festering and fortified sore spreading from the banks of the Ooze, this was for a short time one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, and not even a hundred generations of degenerate rule could tarnish it completely. Before me stretched huge boulevards paved with marble fit for a throne room, winding between breathtaking statues and buildings that seemed to grow from the stone itself. Supported by vast arches and buttresses, buildings crowded one atop another in a seemingly endless heap, serviced by soaring elevated avenues and thoroughfares that became tunnels into the city's heart, where the architecture was so dense as to become subterranean. This was the lifework of generations of the dwarves' master builders, a triumph of engineering and the imagination.
And then it fell. After my initial moment of appreciation, I began to notice the evidence of degradation. Here a statue had been crudely defiled, there a line of crumbled buildings sloughed down the urban mountain like a landslide. Stonework meant to last millennia cracked and buckled under the stress of ancient wounds. Sewage filled a cistern. And everywhere—everywhere!—throngs of orcs milled and shouted, fought and groped. This was their capital. This was First Home. Gathering my nerve, I strapped the standard securely to my back, gripped my sword, and plunged into the crowd.
I appeared to be in the market district, which I counted as lucky. All around me, vendors hawked and haggled, the only difference between here and other cities being the increased violence—indeed, the best merchants seemed to be the burliest and most scarred. Surprisingly, I saw a number of fellow humans in the crowd, albeit keeping a relatively low profile and moving with purpose. I even saw a well-dressed elven trader, his stall of magical curiosities flanked on either side by two especially bestial orc guards. Definitely no dwarves, though—I tried to imagine the shame one of their kind would feel upon seeing a site of such historical significance swarmed over by their ancient enemy, and failed. Attachment to places is a liability in my line of work.
Eager to replace the supplies lost in the ankheg stampede, I se
arched in vain for a fellow human merchant, settling for one of the smaller orc vendors. No sooner had I taken a step that direction, however, than a hand closed on my shoulder.
"Stop," a deep voice barked, and I spun with one hand on my sword, knocking away the offending arm.
Before me, in a ragged semblance of military formation, stood six orcs carrying spears, several of them pointed casually in my direction. Upon all of their chests hung the same black-fisted icon as the gate guards. The largest reached up with casual disdain and grabbed my shoulder once more, thick nails biting through my clothes.
"You will come," he grunted. "If you fight, you will be broken, and then you will come."
There's brave, and then there's stupid. With odds like these, in a city like this, the two look an awful lot alike. Lifting my hand slowly away from my sword, I moved to the center of the group and let the unit march me farther into the city, the crowd parting around us.
Before long we came to a squat, bunker-like building where several similarly garbed orcs milled about throwing dice and wrestling. Above the doorway, a shield bearing the black fist hung above crossed spears. Beneath this awning we passed, and the transition from bright sunlight to near-perfect darkness left me blinking. Makes sense—having originated underground, the orcs were undoubtedly adapted for it.
Most of the guards—and here I made an assumption, for despite their appearance, their actions bespoke authority—peeled off at this point to join their fellows, leaving only two to guide me through the darkness to a heavy wooden door. Eyes still straining, I was walked through it into a new chamber, this one thankfully illuminated by a single candle and unexpectedly furnished with a table, chairs, and a few pages of parchment scattered across the table's scarred surface.
The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline Page 15
