Bone War

by Steven Harper

The next night, they found orcs. They had just crossed a river—part of the Great Wyrm, Kalessa said—and the grass and flowers had returned. Kalessa was showing some relief at this. Danr could feel that her muscles were a little more relaxed as he rode her. He smelled the campfires before he saw their glow, and Aisa swooped back to lead them. Kalessa put on a burst of speed, and in moments they found themselves at a great wall of woven wyrms. They hissed menacingly until Kalessa hissed back and snarled at them, whereupon they fell silent and unwove to let Kalessa and the others through.

  Beyond was an encampment of orcs. Dozens of tents of all sizes were scattered among small fires. Already several orcs were emerging from them. Their greenish complexions and golden eyes looked strange in the firelight, and the sharp, curved swords they bore gleamed in the flickering light. They seemed a bit confused. Danr was clearly not an orc, but he was accompanied by two wyrms. Aisa the owl silently landed and burst into her human shape. Danr tossed her the cloak while the orcs shouted an alarm and raised their weapons.

  “It’s all right!” Danr called. “We’re—”

  “Mother!” Kalessa shot forward and nearly bowled over a particularly tall orcish woman with graying auburn hair in a long braid down her back. She looked, in fact, very much like Kalessa. Or would have, if Kalessa hadn’t changed her shape.

  Xanda recovered herself quickly. She recognized her daughter’s voice, if not her shape. With a gesture, she told the rest of the orcs to stand down. “Kalessa! What in the name of the Nine? Are you all right? What has happened? Is that Danr and Aisa with you?”

  “I had an encounter with a shape mage,” Kalessa said. “But I am fine.”

  “This is … unbelievable.” Xanda reached out to touch her daughter’s face, both exploring it and expressing a mother’s tenderness. “Can you change back?”

  “Not yet.” Kalessa’s tongue flickered out, not quite touching Xanda. “Where is Father? And Jaxo? And—”

  But Xanda’s face told the story. Aisa gasped, and Danr’s insides twisted. He glanced around. The other orcs of the Nest had grim faces, and Danr saw many empty spaces among them. Slynd made a soft sound. Kalessa froze, then drooped all the way to the ground. Her voice fell to a whisper. “All of them?”

  Xanda touched Kalessa’s face again. “Oh, my little princess wyrm. We wanted to send word but did not know how to reach you, or if it would get past the Fae. I am the chief of the Third Nest, and you are my sole heir.”

  A long moment of silence hung in the air. The campfires snapped, and insects chirped in the grass. Then Kalessa threw back her horned head and bellowed to the sky. The sound was agony given its own form, purified sorrow and anger in one long scream. Tears gathered behind Danr’s eyes to hear it. Kalessa’s grief roar grew louder and louder until Danr and the others clapped their hands over their ears. Kalessa’s body writhed and thrashed, forcing Danr, Aisa, and Xanda to leap back. To Danr’s shock, she started to glow. The glow intensified, coruscated across her body, combining with her roar to pound the air with thunder and lightning. A great flash seared Danr’s eyes with pain. He buried his face in his hands, but he could still see the awful light.

  It ended. The silence returned, but it took several moments for Danr’s eyes to clear and the pain spike to leave his head. When it did, he found he was standing a few paces away from Kalessa. She lay naked on her side on the ground. Tears streamed from her eyes.

  “Daughter!” Xanda helped her up. Another orc flung a blanket around her. Kalessa blinked and stretched out her hands beneath the blanket.

  “I have … changed,” she said in a bewildered voice. It sounded so strange to hear her normal tones after weeks of the hissing rumble of the wyrm.

  Xanda gathered her daughter into her arms, and the two of them wept the heavy tears of their Nest while all around them the other orcs raised their arms and shouted defiance to the stars. Danr joined them, and after a moment, so did Aisa. Danr didn’t know or care if anyone heard. They bellowed their outrage to the Nine, to the Gardeners, and to Death herself. The release brought him both a feeling of power and of weak relief.

  When the noise finally subsided, Xanda guided Kalessa to one of the fires while two orcs brought food and drink. Danr and Aisa joined them.

  “Mother,” Kalessa said, “what happened?”

  “It was the box,” Xanda said, and her words put a black hole in Danr’s heart. “The Fae wanted it. Why, we do not know. They attacked us at the breeding grounds during incubation, before the wyrmlings came out of the ground. They Twisted in and caught us by complete surprise. Our iron usually stops the Fae from Twisting through our lands.”

  Aisa said, “Queen Gwylph is drawing on the power of a Gardener these days, and the Gardeners are not bound by the Fae weakness for iron.” She gave a quick explanation.

  Xanda’s face hardened. “The elven queen attacked us with an army of … men. But they were not men. They did not show pain or fear when weapons struck them. The sprites, fairies, and elves who came with them hung back until the strange men had wounded or killed enough of us, and then they all went for your father and brothers. Our family fought as bravely as an army of a thousand orcs, but in the end, it was too much. I saw him fall from a distance, and could do nothing. A sprite flicked into his tent and emerged with the box Danr had given him, and the moment it did so, they set fire to grasslands and retreated. They burned it all and set patrols to hold the land. I later learned that the other Nests were attacked as well, damaged or even destroyed. The worst of it is the loss of the breeding grounds. All the wyrmlings were killed in the fire, and we lost many adult wyrms in the attacks.”

  “Wyrms do not mate every year,” Kalessa explained sadly to Danr and Aisa. “And when they do, it is lucky if they lay more than a single egg. It will take decades to recover.”

  “I am very sorry all this happened,” Aisa said. “It is a crime, and it shows how far Queen Gwylph’s corruption has gone. She no longer cares about anyone but herself, no goals but her own. We must—”

  Danr burst out, “It was my fault. Everything that happened here was my fault.”

  “Was it?” Xanda turned to look at him with narrow golden eyes.

  “A strange thing for a truth-teller to say,” said Kalessa.

  “It’s true,” Danr said, trying not to choke. “I left the box with Chief Hess. If I hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened.”

  “Oh,” said Aisa. “Hamzu, you—”

  “If we are going to go that route,” Xanda interrupted, “we may as well blame the dwarfs for creating the box in the first place. Or Queen Vesha for giving the box to you. Or my husband for agreeing to keep the box.” Her voice hardened. “Do not blame yourself, boy. That trail is for weak-hearted fools. The person to blame is the one who sent that army here—Queen Gwylph herself. I want to watch my own wyrm bite her head off and swallow it while she still screams.”

  There was a moment of silence broken only by the soft crackle of the campfire. At last, Aisa said, “I can see where Kalessa got her way with words.”

  Xanda snorted. “We need to decide what to do next.”

  “You are a chieftain among the orcs now,” Aisa said, “is that right?”

  “I am chieftain of the Third Nest,” Xanda replied with a nod.

  “Could you call the orcs up to war?” Aisa asked. “Again?”

  “Now?” Xanda sighed. “Normally, the orcs would happily go to war against the Fae, but they have hurt us badly. Morale among the tribes is low, and my status as chieftain of the Third Nest is new. I do not think all the tribes would listen to me.”

  A thought came to Danr. “Kalessa,” he said slowly, “can you take the wyrm shape back again?”

  “I … do not know,” Kalessa said while Slynd writhed in the darkness behind her.

  “The old legends say the orcs have a strong connection to the wyrms,” Danr said. “Orcs became wyrms, wyrms became orcs. Orcs were even able to see into the minds of their wyrms. Now that the power of the
shape has returned, Kalessa, maybe you can bring all that back to the orcs, starting now.”

  “Slynd?” Kalessa turned and her wyrm slid forward with his chin on the ground. Kalessa put an arm around his massive head. “Can you feel what I think? Can you see into Mother’s mind?”

  Slynd’s tongue flicked the air and his golden eyes reflected the fire. Otherwise he gave no response.

  “Try it,” said Aisa. “Welk did it. I am sure you can. Use Slynd. Touch his scales. You need only remember what it was to be a wyrm and you can become one again.”

  “Hmm.” Kalessa closed her eyes and ran her hands over Slynd’s head. A long moment passed, and Danr held his breath. “I feel something, but it is faint. Not powerful enough to use.”

  “Here, sister.” Aisa slashed her palm with Kalessa’s blade and held it out to Kalessa. “I do not know why this did not occur to me before.”

  Without hesitation, Kalessa swiped up a few drops with her fingertips and let them fall onto her tongue. Danr gave an inward wince. No matter how often he shared blood or watched Aisa do it, the process still put him off.

  Xanda watched in fascination. “What is happening?”

  “Danr and I are shape mages,” Aisa said. “We shared blood with Grandfather Wyrm himself, and that unlocked our own ability to change form. Anyone else who has a latent ability for the same can find it if they share our blood, or the blood of someone else whose power has been wakened. But there is a price. If Kalessa changes form after she takes my blood, she will be able to draw magical strength from me.”

  Xanda sucked at her teeth. “This would create a powerful bond in a tribe! Shared blood that allows a tribe to share strength and shape! I cannot imagine.”

  Kalessa, meanwhile, had closed her eyes. Slynd rubbed his head against her like a cat asking for its ears to be scratched. “The feeling is stronger now,” she said, “but still I can do nothing with it.”

  On impulse, Danr closed his right eye and looked at her with his left. Kalessa … changed. She was still herself, but also standing in her place was a great wyrm, the powerful wyrm whose shape she had worn for the last several weeks. Kalessa and the wyrm were the same in much the way Danr’s half-troll and fully human forms were the same. The wyrm, however, writhed behind a wall inside her, unable to get out. Kalessa was calling to the wyrm, and so was Aisa’s blood within Kalessa, and the wyrm tried mightily to squirm through the barrier, but still it could not get out. It flicked its tongue in anger.

  Anger. Hmm. Danr ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. I’m sorry, Kalessa.

  “Your father is dead, Kalessa,” he said. “Maybe if you’d been here, he would be alive. And your brothers, too. Instead you threw in with a half troll, a human slave, and a Fae. What kind of daughter does that?”

  Xanda and Aisa gasped. Kalessa’s eyes popped open. “How dare you!”

  “How dare you?” Danr countered. He felt the pain his words were causing her, felt the acid teeth as if they raked across his own skin, but he kept going. “You left your people behind when they needed you most. What could that magic sword have done in defense of your tribe? How many enemies went unslain because you chose outsiders over your own people? What kind of chieftain will you make?”

  “Hamzu!” Aisa hissed. “What—?”

  Kalessa shot to her feet, her face a fury. Behind her, Slynd reared back with an angry hiss. Xanda’s face was pale.

  “You dare speak to me that way after everything I have done for you?” Kalessa snarled. A faint golden glow limned her body. “After the enemies I have slain for you? When I have endured endless torture and pain for you?”

  “You don’t know what pain is!” Danr shot back, also on his feet. “No orc does. You even let yourself be chained up by Sharlee Obsidia. Twice! Some warrior.”

  “I will slay you where you stand, Stane!” Kalessa boomed. But her body was already changing. The blanket fell away. She thickened and grew. Her voice deepened. Scales sprouted and coruscated across her skin. In moments, Danr found himself facing a great horned wyrm. Two of them—Slynd was right beside her.

  “Now you die,” Kalessa snarled, and lunged at him.

  Shit, shit, shit. Danr dove aside at the last moment. Kalessa missed, but Slynd was there. He caught Danr around the waist before he even hit the ground and flung him into the air. Sky and ground blurred into a sickening mess as Danr spun through nothingness. He flailed wildly, but there was nothing to grab. The world jerked to a stop. A terrible pressure was crushing his midsection. He couldn’t catch his breath. Kalessa had him sideways in her mouth like a cat with a mouse. Her teeth dug into skin and muscle. Danr struggled but got no leverage. The pressure increased and Danr let out an involuntary groan.

  “Sister!” Aisa barked. “Look at yourself! Look at what you are doing!”

  The pressure let up, but only marginally. Danr’s bones creaked, and he prayed to the Nine. Puffs of air—Kalessa’s breath—rushed past him in a dreadful kind of wind.

  “You did it, my daughter!” Xanda exclaimed from somewhere behind Danr. “You changed like the orcs in the old legends!”

  “Now let him down,” Aisa added. “You know he meant no harm.”

  There was a long, long moment when Kalessa didn’t move. Danr, heart pounding in his ears, forced himself to remain limp. Kalessa finally opened her mouth and let him drop to the ground. Danr stumbled and went to one knee. Aisa rushed over to him.

  “Are you well?” she demanded.

  “A few bruises, I think,” he said, “but I’ll live.”

  Kalessa lowered her head and glared at him with heavy golden eyes. “You said those things to make me angry.”

  “I saw it.” Danr tapped his left eye. “You needed a push, and anger was your fuel. I’m sorry. You’re a good daughter, Kalessa, a warrior who frightens the Nine themselves, and the best orc I know.”

  “You do not know more than a dozen,” Kalessa accused with a small laugh. “I apologize for my outburst, my friend, and I am glad you are uninjured. Your words took bravery. Though …” She twisted around to look at herself. “… they seem to have worked.”

  “Can you change back yet again?” Aisa asked.

  In answer, Kalessa’s body glowed and in a moment, she stood naked before them all. This time, Slynd snatched up the blanket and dropped it over her.

  “I feel him,” Kalessa said in awe. While she spoke, Slynd brought his head down and Kalessa stepped onto it. He raised her higher and higher, a look of adoration on his face. “His mind speaks to me and mine to his. Not in words, but in … concepts. Slynd and I are one!”

  A roar rose. Startled, Danr spun and saw that the rest of the tribe had emerged from their tents, attracted by the commotion. They crowded around Slynd and Kalessa, their green skins and golden eyes making a strange and boisterous crowd beneath the starry sky. All of them wanted to touch Kalessa. Slynd lowered his head carefully, and Kalessa put out her hands to every orc she could reach. Danr felt a pride he hadn’t known he could feel. Kalessa was a strange sort of sister to him, and to see the orcs rally around her like this made his heart swell. Kalessa had Slynd raise her again.

  “My sisters and brothers!” she called, still wrapped in the blanket. “This magic can come to you, just like in the days of old. We can find our strength! We can regain our power!”

  Wild cheers broke out among the assembled orcs. Aisa tossed Kalessa’s blade to her. She caught it, changed it into the great curved sword orcs favored, and raised it above her head, never minding that the blanket fell away. She made a stark and powerful picture, standing naked on the head of a great wyrm with the gleaming magic sword describing an arc above her head.

  “We can rebuild the Nesting grounds, overcome our enemies, regain our lost lands!” Kalessa boomed. “Who is willing?”

  Every orc shouted and howled and yelled. Danr realized he himself was roaring like a troll.

  “Then share in the power!” Kalessa finished. “Share in your wyrm!”

&nbs
p; A celebration began. The orcs broke out drums and rattles, creating a heart-thumping rhythm that pulsed in Danr’s veins. More food and drink appeared. Orcs danced and shouted in equal measures around the fires. A green-robed priestess appeared, and Danr wondered if she was the same one they had encountered back when they were searching for the Iron Axe. He hadn’t seen her face beneath her hood, so he had no way to know, and this woman showed no signs of recognizing him. She quickly took charge of doling out dollops of Danr’s and Aisa’s blood to a line of orcs, waving a sweet-smelling bundle of burning sage in blessing over each and calling on the power of Kalinda, the shape-shifting moon, on each orc. Kalessa, still naked, stood atop Slynd’s head and looked on with glittering eyes. Danr had to remind himself not to stare at her and her fierce beauty while the priestess squeezed another drop of blood from the cut on his hand.

  To everyone’s disappointment, especially after Kalessa’s rousing demonstration and speech, none of them were able to change shape, even Xanda. At least none of them turned into chaotic blobs and died. Perhaps orcs weren’t prone to that. Kalessa, for her part, remained unfazed by the failure. She stepped down from Slynd’s head and donned a cloak, as Aisa so often did. Danr wondered how quickly nudity and cloaks might become the custom for shape mages.

  “Danr, my friend,” Kalessa said, “would you look at the Nest with your true eye?”

  Danr did. Every orc in the tribe—man, woman, and child—showed at least a small affinity for connecting with the wyrms, and inside many of them he saw a trapped wyrm, just as he had seen inside Kalessa. He reported this to her with more than a little wonder.

  “It is as I thought,” she said with a firm nod. “They only need learn, as I did. And we must spread blood to the other tribes.”

  The party continued, even though everyone was tired. “They need a reason to celebrate,” Xanda said. “It is good to have a reason.”

  Eventually, Danr and Aisa retired to a tent Xanda ordered set up for them, and it was a fine, fine thing to stretch out on soft furs and wyrm-skin leather after so many weeks of cloaks and cold ground.