Blood Gate Boxed Set

by K L Reinhart

  Vorg was a monster even by orcish standards, and he dwarfed the three orcs that surrounded him with their weapons leveled and drawn, his whip in one hand and his battle-ax in another. But even for all of his great and monstrous size, Vorg’s opponents didn’t seem put off by the challenge at all. Instead, they appeared intent on closing with the traitor to orcish kind, with Wekun leading the attack.

  “You’ll make a fine trophy, Vorg!” Wekun snarled, jumping forward—

  Terak pulled himself up to the top of the window, this time bringing his feet in as near to the Clock Tower wall as he could, as he expected the sudden attack of Morthog below.

  But it didn’t come.

  Huh? Terak wondered for a moment, but didn’t want to out-guess his luck. He looked up to see that the next level was his goal. The row of hanging lanterns was just above his head. He was looking upward at the much wider stone lintel of one of the Clock Tower faces itself, with the small, peaked roof above it.

  I should have asked Homuz where this old bell is . . . A panicked thought flashed through Terak’s mind for a brief moment. But there was no second-guessing it now. He pulled himself up to the Clock Tower ledge, to find himself against a wide circle of opaque glass. It glowed dimly with a creamy-yellow radiance. A long, iron-wrought arm indicated the watches of the night and day from First Watch to Morn Watch, Midday, Even-Watch, and back to Night Watch. The hand was currently between First Watch and Morn—which brought Terak no special comfort.

  The elf snatched the broadsword from his belt and hammered the magically glowing glass. Thankfully, it gave easily under the heavy steel. The clock face on this side of the tower burst inwards in a shower of glittering fragments. Strangely, each jagged fragment—whether it was thumb-sized or as large as Terak’s body—still held onto its internal cream-yellow glow.

  Terak stepped over the broken window ledge into a wide, wooden-beamed room. It was made cramped by the residence of an immensely large bronze bell.

  Heavy ropes hung down from around the outside of the bell and fell through a square hole in the floor. The still-glowing magical glass illuminated the bell and the room like the fragments of stars.

  And they also illuminated the large, brutish form of Morthog, waiting for Terak with his long-handled battle-ax.

  “Elf!” Morthog sneered with easily apparent glee. The glowing fractal-light of a thousand pieces of crystal glass set the orc’s fanged face into sharp relief, as if Morthog were a creature cut not out of flesh, but out of stone.

  With a snarl, the orc jumped around the right-hand side of the bell with a powerful leap, swinging his battle-ax. Terak darted in the other direction around the bell. There was an almighty crash as Morthog’s ax bit down onto the wooden floors, while Terak hopped back around, his broadsword flashing out to score a glancing blow against the meat of Morthog’s arm.

  “Grargh!” Green ichor flew across the bell house as Morthog swung his battle-ax in a savage sweep back toward the elf.

  But here—in this fight at least—Terak had one small advantage: he was much faster than the orc. Much faster. He danced backwards as the orc’s ax smashed against the side of the huge bronze bell—

  BWWAARRM!

  The noise was deep, resonant, and entirely deafening. Terak’s feet tripped in shock as the booming noise overcame his sensitive ears. He stumbled against the far wall. Morthog, too, appeared to wince and roar in aural pain. But in the orc, it only made him even more frenzied, as he jumped around the side of the bell.

  Terak ducked, and the stone wall thudded with the bite of Morthog’s ax. Even though the elf’s world had become one of white noise—his hearing almost entirely giving way under the assault of the bell—he still threw himself to the far side of the room with the orc just a few steps behind him . . .

  It’s only noise. Only pain! Terak threw his broadsword out to his side, smacking the bell with the flat of the blade. It rocked toward Morthog, forcing the orc to skid or else crash into it.

  Terak’s head felt like it was ringing in sympathy with the giant bell. Even his teeth rattled in his head and ached with the vibrations. But the elf knew that it was only sensation. It wasn’t enough to stop him from what he had to do.

  And now the bell was swinging back, revealing the outraged Morthog, his mouth wide in a moan of pain at the deafening noise—not that Terak could hear it at this point.

  Terak jumped back as the orc charged. The elf managed to bring his broadsword up to catch the orc’s strike in a parry. But the sound of the bell was sending the orc into a frenzy. He reversed his ax and struck forward with the wooden handle . . .

  “Ach!” The blow hit Terak’s shoulder, spinning him around and skidding him almost to the hole in the floor underneath the bell—

  The bell was swinging wildly now, forcing Morthog to swerve back or be crushed by its weight.

  Only. Pain! Terak smacked the bell with the flat of his sword again, knowing that every deafening strike would alert the citizens of Araxia to flee if they could and would draw the attention of every orc that could hear it.

  The orcs would come to investigate. They would leave their looting to find out what disturbed their bloody sport. Terak smacked the bell again and again. Every blow sent his own headache into an ever-rising fever pitch. He could only hope that it was as disorientating to Morthog as it was to him as he raised his blade for another strike.

  Terak didn’t hear the bellow of rage from the orc, but he saw the giant bell suddenly shiver and shudder as it flew toward him. The orc had seized it and thrown it back at the elf, but Terak had nowhere to go—

  Nowhere except onto the bell itself. Terak leapt, his hands grabbing the top metal hoop as wide around as his entire body was. His body slammed onto the mass of the bell, and he was carried upwards.

  BWARRRM! The bell tolled, and Terak felt the vibration shake through his entire body. He reached the apex of the curve, his body rising from the bell as he clung onto the hoop—

  To kick down with his feet as the bell started its inexorable downward swing. Terak was riding the bell and pushing it with his feet. His weight added to its acceleration, sending it crashing back toward Morthog.

  BWWAARM!

  The bell’s hammer hit at the same time as the bronze hit the orc. It knocked him backwards through the opposite crystal-glass face on the wall of the Old Clock Tower with a scintillating crash.

  Terak’s enemy was flung from the tower, spinning through the air with a surprised grunt as he fell over a hundred feet to the cobbles of the plaza below.

  Terak’s ears were too full of the ringing bell to hear the heavy thump as Morthog’s body hit the floor. But the elf didn’t have to hear to know what the outcome would be. Not even an orc could have survived such a fall.

  “Urk!” And Terak was falling to the floor of the bell house room, rolling to the corner as the bell shook and swung wildly, ringing across the broken city of Araxia.

  18

  Orcish Honor

  Terak’s head was still heavy with noise of the crazed bell when a shadow fell across him—not of the bell, but of another orc.

  “Hmm,” grunted the impressive bulk of Vorg the Unwanted, standing over him with his black-iron armor encrusted with dried green blood. Terak thought that at least some of it was his, as Vorg appeared to be limping, and favoring his right side awkwardly.

  “I can’t hear you!” Terak knew that he had opened his mouth to say the words, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice against the clamor. With a grunt, Vorg turned to catch the giant bronze bell. With only a small amount of effort, the orc stilled it to once again hang over the pull ropes and door in the floor, mercifully silent.

  It took a while for Terak’s sensitive hearing to recover. For some moments, he existed in a silent world of glowing glass fragments. Vorg offered the elf his hand. In this silent realm, he brought Terak to one of the smashed-open windows (thankfully, not the one that Morthog had fallen through, Terak realized to his relief). That didn’t mean
that the view from this side of the Old Clock Tower was any less shocking.

  There was the small plaza of the Old Clock Tower and its circle of railings that separated it from the rest of Fisherman’s Lane. Terak counted a scattering of at least five orc bodies lying about the lane, each in a state of twisted and mangled dismemberment. At least two looked as though they had been strangled by Vorg’s ever-moving, still-obscenely-living tentacle.

  But as Terak’s hearing started to come back to him, it brought with it a sound that he didn’t want to hear.

  It was the tramp and stamp of feet. A lot of feet.

  Terak raised his head to see what was causing the noise. Out there, between the buildings and in the streets of the human city of Araxia, moved lines of light.

  “Battle-light,” Terak’s muted hearing heard Vorg the Unwanted beside him mutter. The gigantic orc didn’t seem to be very pleased with the explanation.

  Terak realized that he was looking at hundreds of orange-red orbs of magical were-light. These were bigger and more erratic than the soft blue-white of the more regular were-light which the humans and elves used to illuminate their houses and activities.

  No, these flaming orbs of battle-light looked like the disembodied heads of torches, sending their bloodied radiance over the gleam of grayish skin and dark metal armor, fangs, and naked blades.

  It’s the orcish armies, Terak saw with some horror. They were snaking their way toward the Old Clock Tower, clearly summoned by the bell.

  “They must think the Araxians have pitched a last-ditch defense here,” Terak said as his hearing slowly returned to an aching sort of normal.

  “No humans here,” Vorg the Unwanted muttered somewhat dourly. “Only us.” He hefted his gigantic, double-headed battle-ax in one hand, and the elf got the impression that Vorg had already resigned himself to his fate.

  Maybe the orc is just being sensible, Terak thought as he saw just how many different groups of orcs were converging on the dockside district. It looked as though every warband from the small to the thirty or fifty strong was approaching them, their rivers of battle-light joining to become giant streams.

  “But we can still get out. The humans said there were boats on the river . . .” Terak said, turning to run around the bell to the other smashed window of the Old Clock Tower. He ignored the sight of the mangled Morthog below, and instead looked out onto the plain oblongs and squares of the warehouses—

  Where there were more lines of battle-light coming toward them. Nowhere near as many as were heading through the south of the city, it had to be said—but Terak thought he could see at least twenty, thirty orcs spread out in different groups.

  “I hope Homuz and the others got out safely,” Terak muttered to himself, taking a deep breath.

  “The Hexan showed me how to open a portal, but . . .” The heavy voice of Vorg beside him sounded doubtful. Terak remembered the burning pain of the passage between the worlds—and the terror of the Queen of a Thousand Tears, so close and so interested in their world. The elf quickly shook his head.

  “It’s too dangerous.” Terak was adamant. There was nothing in the elf’s mind that wanted to encounter the Ungol Queen ever again.

  Right. So this is going to be it, is it? The elf with the silvered arm bared his teeth and hissed into the night at his enemy. How many were there altogether? A couple hundred? More?

  There were still fires burning out there across the city. Terak returned to the original window. He presumed that meant that there were still other orc warbands raiding and looting here and there. But a sizable number of the warbands appeared to have been ordered to respond to what they thought to be the nearest threat and were looking to overwhelm and crush it completely.

  And instead, they are going to find us. Terak looked across to his gigantic companion, Vorg the Unwanted, traitor to his own kind.

  It was hopeless, of course, but for some reason, that didn’t stop Terak’s mouth from crooking into a grin. A chuckle escaped from between his lips. It was all so ridiculous, the elf thought. He wasn’t sure what was more tragic. The fact that here he was, an elf who had never even belonged in the Enclave, now about to try and make a last stand to defend a human city that he had never heard about prior to a couple days ago. Or that beside him was one of his people’s sworn enemies—an orc!

  “What are they hoping to find, do you think?” Terak gave in to the laughter. He marveled at how let down all of those hundreds of orcs were going to be when they found out that they had gotten spooked by an old bell and a couple of already-injured vagabonds.

  Beside him, Vorg started to chuckle too, as the merriment of the elf appeared contagious.

  “Ah . . .” Terak shook his head as the last chuckle escaped him. His mind sobered to the cold and hard reality of what faced them.

  Just as the first of the ugly little black-feathered arrows of the orcs started to rain down on the Old Clock Tower . . .

  “Down!” Vorg grunted, pushing Terak to one side with a shove that almost sent the elf to the floor. But the giant orc must have been gentle (or what he considered gentle, anyway) as Terak rebounded against the walls with only a moderately painful thud.

  And Vorg the Unwanted turned his shoulder to the window as the first of the orc warbands’ arrows hailed down. Terak saw at least two strike the immense, iron-rounded shoulder pauldron of the orc, striking sparks and adding to the scratches that he had put there himself.

  Vorg growled his defiance at the deadly hail, and side-stepped as more arrows clattered through the broken Clock Tower window, hammering on the side of the bell with a clatter like tiny hammers.

  “Are you hurt?” Terak couldn’t avoid asking. Vorg merely shrugged his shoulders as if saying that even if he was, it still wouldn’t matter.

  The arrows continued their thundering storm against the tower for a long time. Every now and again, one or two reached through the open window to strike the bell with a dull chime. Eventually the storm subsided as the orcs appeared to tire of their sport.

  Terak eased himself to the edge of the window, keeping himself low and his body angled so that he presented as small a target as possible for any sharp-shot orc that was out there.

  The first of the orc warbands were streaming into Fisherman’s Lane. Terak saw that most of them appeared better equipped and more heavily armored than the warbands of Wekun and the others whom Terak had encountered. He saw oddly-forged pikes and halberds as well as the flat-bladed weapons. More of them appeared gird in breastplates or even had shields.

  These aren’t just the hunting, skirmishing warbands. Terak bared his teeth to hiss at them. These were the soldiered fighting forces of the orcish tribes—grim, implacable, and strong.

  And organized, Terak had to admit. He heard the tinny shriek of small metal horns and saw the warbands halt. Not exactly standing in formation (they were orcs, after all) but at least congregating together at one side of Fisherman’s Lane. Their numbers were swelling and pressing together to fill all of the nearby avenues and streets like a tide.

  “Hrogh!” There began a loud grunt and a stamp of orcish feet and then again, “Hrogh! Hrogh! Hrogh!”

  It was some kind of war chant or ritual. Even the arrows had stopped their deadly hail against the stone and wood of the Old Clock Tower.

  “Can’t they see that there isn’t a company of Araxian soldiers in here?” Terak thought wildly, before he suddenly realized just what he had said. If the orc warbands found out too quickly that there was nothing to worry about—it was just one orc and one elf—then the distraction that he was hoping to provide for any would-be survivors of the city would be short-lived.

  “Ixcht!” Terak thought with a snarl, turning to look for what materials were available: glass, one giant orc, and the bell.

  Okay, I’ve worked with a whole lot better . . . Terak growled.

  “What is it?” Vorg said in his crackling bass voice.

  “We need to keep them interested, keep them coming for us,�
� Terak said.

  Vorg looked at the elf like he had lost his mind before a slow smile cracked his heavy jaw. “You are mad, little elf. I like it.”

  “But how?” Terak groaned. If they had bows or crossbows, they could pretend to be a complement of Araxian archers holed up in the tower. If they had magic—I am a null!—then they could pretend to be the last stand of a bunch of Araxian seers . . .

  Vorg the Unwanted was silent for a moment and then shrugged. “I know a way to make them angry,” the orc said and drew a deep breath.

  Vorg bided his time for the war chant of the orc warbands—“Hrogh! Hrogh! Hrogh!”—to reach a crescendo and then stop abruptly. Terak bit his lip, knowing that he had to just trust that the orc Champion knew what he was doing. Vorg had, after all, once been the darling of the orc people.

  “I couldn’t find my old master anyway,” Vorg said in a low grumble.

  Outside, the orc warbands had quieted. An unnatural silence fell over the docks of Araxia. Terak saw that morning couldn’t be far off. There was a thin sliver of the Second Moon setting over the western peaks, and it was pulling behind it from the east, the purple light of pre-dawn. The lighter tones revealed the red-streaked War Burg, which had now finally steeled before the tumbled walls. It loomed over everything with its immense and improbable height.

  I know where the Hexan has gone, Terak thought and wondered if now was the time to tell Vorg. If he did, would Vorg decide to use his portal magic anyway—even at the risk that it brought the Ungol incursion?

  Terak watched the giant, granite-like form of Vorg standing in the shadows of the bell room, looking fierce and resigned. The elf realized that he had to tell him.

  You and I are so different, Terak told himself. But if there was one thing Terak had learned as a null and an elf of the Enclave—it was that being different from everyone else didn’t mean that you didn’t deserve respect and honesty.