Dragonhammer: Volume II

by Conner McCall

  All the while, the orc is silent. He sets his tankard on the table with a bang and some of it sloshes over the sides, but he does not drink. He stares at me. I stare back.

  “What is your name?” I finally ask.

  His voice is deep and rich. I was expecting a rough, gravelly sound, but his tone is actually quite smooth. “My kin call me Ullrog Hornsplitter. You call me Ullrog.” He has a harsh accent that accentuates the ‘o’s and ‘r’s.

  I nod. “My name is-”

  “Khroll’verär,” he interrupts. I raise an eyebrow. “Khroll'verär,” he repeats, a little softer. Then he says, “Dragonhammer. Even orc hear your name.”

  “What have you come here for?” I ask, taking a sip of my drink.

  “I want offer my sword service of Jarl Hralfar.”

  It takes me a moment to discern the meaning from his accent and lack of fluency. “Why?”

  “Why did you?” he responds rhetorically. “I want fight.” Still he doesn’t touch his tankard.

  “You must have travelled a long way,” I prod. “Where are you from?”

  “Why you help me?” he asks suddenly.

  I’m confused by the sudden change of subject. “Because you deserve a drink as much as anyone else.”

  He furrows his brow and leans forward, resting his enormous elbows on the table. “You have honor,” he says. “No man has shown me such kindness in all my life.” Then he picks up the tankard and drains it.

  “Because you’re an orc?” I assume.

  He nods, slamming his empty tankard on the table. He wipes his chin with one of his forearms and belches loudly. “Orc not welcome here.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Because they scared of us,” he growls. “We are different.” He sees my hammer, which I have leaned against the wall. “Where you get verär?” he asks. He sees my confused expression and shakes his head, closing his eyes tightly, searching for the right word. “Hammer,” he says. “Where get hammer?”

  “I made it.”

  His thick black eyebrows go up a little and he repeats in awe, “You make it?”

  I nod and he says quietly, “Yehr zorieth nokh vey, sgre’mollog.” I do not bother to ask him what it means.

  “I can get you into the legion,” I establish after a moment of silence.

  “Why you do that?” he growls.

  “Because I trust you,” I respond. “I find no reason that you should not be fighting with us.”

  He nods. “I be honored fight with you.”

  “Good then. There’s no use waiting. Let’s be off.”

  He bumps the table and almost tips it over as he rises from his chair. The barkeep turns away from us as we pass him and exit.

  As we walk up the steps to the plaza leading into the fortress, the guards rise and trade uneasy glances.

  “Halt!” calls one of them.

  “This man wishes to become a part of our fighting force,” I explain. “You will let us by.”

  “But he’s-” the second begins.

  “That’s an order,” I command. He looks down and I escort Ullrog across the drawbridge to the gate of the fortress.

  “Thank you,” the orc growls as we enter the keep. “It would be pity to lose a sword that desires only fight with them.”

  We walk through the network of corridors until we come upon the throne room.

  “What is he doing in-” one of the guards begins.

  “Tell Jarl Hralfar I have a man who would be a soldier.”

  “Some man,” the guard mutters as he peaks into the room and enters with the message. Only moments later he allows us into the room.

  The Jarl’s eyes widen at the sight of the orc. He looks at me. “What is he doing in here?” he snaps.

  “He wishes to join us,” I reply coolly.

  “And you just think that we’re going to let any old orc into our ranks?!” The Jarl’s voice is rising.

  “Why not?” I reply.

  “He’s an orc, Kadmus!” I’m taken aback by the hostility. “It’s bad enough that you’ve led him in here! Did it cross your mind that he might be an assassin sent to kill me? Or you? Are you naïve enough to really believe that this orc is honorable enough to fight with us?”

  The orc’s low voice resounds through the air and into my ear. “Sie thiem khroash durak yehr, unkha dur!”

  “Silence!” the Jarl barks. Ullrog’s nose flares, but he says nothing else. “Take him out,” the Jarl mutters. “I will not have him in my stronghold.”

  Slowly I turn to face Ullrog. The orc’s bestial face stares into mine, but I do not find what I thought I would find. Instead of anger, whether at the disrespect shown him or at the broken illusion of a promise, I find understanding.

  “It okay,” he says. “I knew.”

  I shake my head as the guards usher us out. The others make to follow me, but I shake my head. “I’m not done yet,” my gesture tells them.

  “Move it, greenie,” one of the guards shoves.

  I watch the enormous build of the orc give way beneath the frail push of the guard. He shows no sign of fighting back.

  “Serves you right,” a soldier says as we pass him in the hall. Yet another spits into the orc’s face. Ullrog wipes the blob of spit from the bridge of his nose and carelessly wipes it on his otherwise clean fur trousers.

  Despite his strength and size, he allows the guards to push and prod him all the way out of the castle. Even then, the guards shepherd him along hurriedly down the street. I continue to follow them.

  The barkeep gives me a nasty look as we pass, and then nods in satisfaction at the sight of the willfully subdued orc.

  Why isn’t he fighting back?

  “Stay out,” says one of the guards as they usher him onto the drawbridge that leads out of the city. They try to push him forward and out, but he stands rigid and they end up pushing themselves to the stones of the pavement. He doesn’t budge.

  Hurriedly the guards get up as if they had fallen on purpose, and then stroll back to the castle with a bit of a frightened kick in their step.

  The orc furrows his brow at me. “Why you still here?”

  I take a breath. “What did you say back there?” I ask. “In the keep?”

  Without the slightest change in his face, he says, “If I wanted kill him, he’d be dead.”

  “Without a doubt,” I mutter, eyeing the enormous muscles rippling beneath his taut green skin. The long hilt of his sword sticks out of the sheath on his back.

  His eyes narrow as he repeats, “Why you still here?”

  After a searching pause, I answer, “Because I trust you.”

  Without missing a beat he asks, “Why you trust Ullrog?”

  Equally quickly I respond, “You haven’t given me a reason not to.”

  “Trust too quickly,” the orc says. “But… thank you.” Then he turns to walk away down the bridge.

  “May I come with you?” I ask, suddenly very curious.

  Again his voice rumbles, “Why?” He has stopped, but does not turn around.

  “I will get you a place in this army. I promise you.”

  Slowly the orc turns and looks me in the eye. His eyes are observant and reveal a quick wit and a sharp mind. He examines me and my hammer for a moment. Then he nods.

  He is silent all the way back to his camp, which he has set up just north of the city on the bank of the Juniper River in a small clearing. Bushes and shrubs line the edges of the clearing, and trees surround that further. A small trail leads through the bracken to the main road.

  I say nothing. There is nothing to be said. What are you getting yourself into? I ask myself. You’re going alone with someone you don’t know outside of a city in the evening during one of the worst wars we’ve seen in centuries. And he’s an orc.

  I have to see if the stories are true, I tell myself.

  If they are? I ask myself.

  Let’s hope I am capable of besting him.

  Let’s hope it never
comes to that.

  He gathers some small twigs, after which he gathers a larger pile of sizable branches. He has built a small lean-to out of pine branches on the edge of the clearing, with a bedroll inside, and a fire pit in the middle of the clearing.

  He pulls a long bough from a tangle of branches and speculates it for a moment. Then, with his bare hands, he breaks it in two.

  I stare in disbelief at the four-inch-thick logs he now holds in either hand. Let’s really hope it doesn’t come to that.

  He lights a fire and sits on a large rock. I stand across from him.

  He still wears his sword. But I do not see a necklace with a human heart. Nor a dagger carved from a femur. Or even a belt lined with skulls. I don’t even spot a single gold coin.

  Various questions come into my head, such as, What is his profession? Where did he come from? Why does he want to fight with us?

  I ask none of them and instead stare blankly into the orange flames. It pops and sparks fly towards the river, rising with the smoke and dying before they can reach the vast cobalt sky. Stars begin to appear. My friends will wonder where I am, but I pay the thought no heed.

  The orc turns to his pack, which he had actually hefted down from a tree a few minutes earlier, and pulls out a large slab of meat still on the bone. It is raw.

  Then he takes a long stick and penetrates the meat parallel to the bone. He holds it over the fire.

  “Thiem durash na-” he catches himself and shakes his head. “I…” He searches for the right word. “…killed boar in morning,” he says. Slowly the smell of the roasting pork perpetrates the air and eventually my nostrils. Juice hisses as it hits the hot orange coils, bubbling and quickly evaporating into nothingness.

  I look around for a bow with which he would have had to shoot the animal, but I see none. The orc enjoys my confusion, and chooses to leave me in the dark.

  He rotates the ham.

  “Why you stand?” he asks. It takes me a moment to respond and he interrupts, “You scared of me too?”

  I shake my head. “Don’t like the dirt. Disagrees with my backside.”

  “Rest your legs,” he commands. Then he says, “Sie thiem khroash durak yehr, unkha dur.”

  I recall the same words he had spoken in the city hours earlier. If I wanted kill him, he’d be dead.

  With an amused smile, I sit down on the dirt across from him.

  “What do you do for a living?” I ask.

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “Job?” I continue. “Work?”

  His eyes narrow. “No understand,” he says.

  I shake my head. “Where are you from?”

  “Arthensgulf,” he says. I trace a map in my head and find Arthensgulf to be the province in the top left corner of the continent. It’s the largest province and full of all kinds of cities and villages, but I do not bother to ask him specifically.

  Unable to think of other topics of conversation, I sit quietly, waiting for the pork to finish cooking. Finally he pulls the pork from the fire, inspects it, and then tears into it voraciously. I watch.

  He pulls his face from the meat and lowers the meal. Juice drips from his chin and a strand of meat hangs from his right fang. “You want?” he says, after swallowing.

  Until now I had not thought of my own need for refreshment, and remembered that as of yet I had not had dinner. “You would share?” I ask.

  He ignores the question and repeats, “You want?” He gestures the meat towards me.

  “Yes please,” I respond.

  With a satisfied nod he digs his fingers into the meat and throws me a sizable chunk. I didn’t expect the throw, and so the meat almost slips from my grasp and into the dirt, but I manage to catch it before it touches the ground. I look back up and see Ullrog ripping through his meat.

  I try a bite and find myself both surprised and impressed. The orc must have seasoned the meat with something more than salt when he stashed it away this morning. The outside is deliciously crisp, on the verge of burnt, and the pork has lost very little juice to the fire. The rest of it gushes into my mouth.

  I find myself licking my fingers when the supply of meat has gone. The orc belches loudly and picks a strand out of his teeth, and then slurps it up like a noodle.

  He looks at the dark sky. “You sleep outside? Not in city?”

  I nod. “Maybe my absence will prove a point.”

  He thinks about my sentence for a moment, and seems to grasp the concept. Then he says, “I have blanket you use.”

  “I couldn’t take away your own bed.”

  “Extra,” he says. Then he pulls a blanket out of his pack. The item reminds me vividly of the almost identical item I had given Nathaniel for his birthday in Terrace only months ago.

  “Thank you,” I say, catching the thrown item.

  “Freyash,” he responds. He does not catch the fact that he has spoken in Orcish, but I do not correct him.

  I sleep under the blanket with my head resting on top of my balled-up jacket. The night is cold, but tolerably so.

  Induction

  I wake to the sound of tightening ropes.

  I start and sit up, breathing heavily, feeling about my chest for the ropes that I’m sure he must have tied around me- only to see him looking at me amusedly from the other side of the clearing.

  He pulls a rope that is slung over a long branch high in the tree, hoisting his pack higher and higher into the tree with every heave. I notice that he has woven pine branches onto the pack, disguising it nicely in the brush. The rope is slightly conspicuous, but he isn’t worried. He ties it off on a low branch and slings his sheath onto his shoulder.

  “You had breakfast?” I ask. The sun has hardly risen; the first rays of daylight are just beginning to come up behind the mountains to the east, so most of the world is still cloaked in the umbra of night.

  “Food?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Not hungry,” he replies. “Eat later.”

  I nod my understanding and roll up the blanket dutifully. He watches, and then takes it when I hand it to him. Because his pack is already in the tree, he simply hides the blanket in the brush underneath the hanging rope.

  “You have plan?” he asks, scrutinizing me with his black eyes.

  It takes me a moment to recall what he is talking about, probably due to the fact that I’m still waking up. “Yes,” I reply. “I’ll get you into the army.”

  We time our approach to the city so perfectly that the drawbridge opens just when we get within a hundred yards. The sun is still in the process of rising, so the sky is gray and the world is lit in twilight.

  “You!” says one of the guards atop the gate. He points at Ullrog. “You’re not allowed into the city!”

  “Under what charges?” I pose. “Offering his sword in service of the Jarl?”

  “Captain!” the guard exclaims in surprise. “Those were my orders!”

  “Well, I must ask you to suspend them,” I command. “Because we’re coming in whether you do or not.”

  Then I and Ullrog enter the city.

  Fragruss is still just beginning to wake up as we walk down the main road towards the castle. I am thankful. It means there are fewer eyes on us.

  “Halt!” call the guards at the entrance to the castle. “What is he doing back in the city?”

  “He is here to join the army,” I reply.

  “I’m not letting him in the castle, Captain,” says the guard. “Jarl’s orders.”

  “Then bring him out.”

  The guard blinks in disbelief. “What?”

  “Then bring the Jarl out.” Every one of my words is overly annunciated and emphasized.

  “But-”

  “Do it.” My words silence the guard and he opens his mouth as if to say something else. He decides against it and hurries inside.

  We wait in awkward silence with the other guard.

  An angry voice breaks said silence.

  “What in the blasted dingfl
ies-” the Jarl rages, stomping across the narrow bridge that leads out of the castle. “-do you think you are doing, Captain Armstrong?”

  “Let him join,” I command.

  The Jarl’s eyes widen. “I respect your opinion, Captain,” he says, “and I respect you as my Captain and my advisor, but I will not take orders from you, no matter what you may have proven in battle.” He must look up to see into my eyes.

  “Then listen to my opinion,” I urge.

  “He’s an orc,” Hralfar says, trying very hard to keep his voice steady. “I cannot.”

  “Why?”

  “I believe I answered that yesterday. End of discussion.” He turns away and begins to clomp back across the bridge.

  “He could take the oath,” I call.

  Abruptly the Jarl turns back. I can almost see the steam pouring out of his ears. “That orc,” he seethes, “can make no oath to me that I will ever respect.”

  Suddenly a huge hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me back, away from the Jarl. I look at Ullrog just as he pulls a wicked dagger from his belt and raises it.

  The guards scramble for their weapons and the Jarl stumbles back.

  Then something happens that no one expected. Ullrog grips the blade of the knife with his right hand and slowly drags the dagger across his palm. The sound of splitting flesh pierces the air. Black blood drips from his clenched fist and he raises the dagger to his mouth.

  His tongue sticks from between his fangs and licks the side of the dagger clean in one swipe. He lowers the dagger and a drop of blood falls to the stone. The guards stare in utter shock and Jarl Hralfar follows suit.

  “Thiem gar blakmos shakhor oshnïl!” The orc’s voice booms across the bridge and penetrates my bones. He repeats his words in our understanding: “With my blood, I seal my oath!” The Jarl blinks consciously, flabbergasted. Then Ullrog finishes, “I serve Lord Jarl Hralfar!”

  The Jarl is at war with himself. The guards around him, as well as every other soldier in the army, expect him to turn away the orc like the scum they think he is. I, his captain and advisor, am trying to convince him otherwise. What is he to do?