Tovak glanced down at the ground. He took a deep breath, recalling his fight with the murinok. He ran through the options in his head, thinking about what they had to work with.
“We’re growing old just standing here, boy,” Logath said.
“Okay,” Tovak said, “this is what I think we should do. The underside will be the creature’s weak point.”
“The underside?” Logath interrupted. “Are you kidding me? How are we going to get at its belly? Ask it to roll over so we can rub its tummy?”
“Logath,” Thegdol said in a warning tone.
“When the murinok attacked me, it reared up and showed me its underside,” Tovak explained. “I was able to stab it between the plates when it lunged. On its back and sides, the armored plates overlap one another, making it nearly impossible to injure it. Spears just won’t penetrate the armored plates. So, the weak points are the head and belly.”
Tovak paused to suck in a breath. He glanced behind at the two squads and then motioned with his hands to help describe what he wanted. “We need to spread both squads out in one long line behind me, as we move forward.” He drew a line in the dirt at his feet, with two dots just ahead of the midpoint. “That way, as we advance into the boulder field, if the creature is off to the left or right of me, someone will hopefully spot it and give the warning. Either way, we will cover more of the field this way.” Tovak paused a moment to see if there were any objections or questions.
“Go on,” Thegdol said.
“When we find the murinok, we need to come at it from all sides, surround it, so that it can’t focus on one individual. Our initial goal should be to distract it while looking for openings to attack. I’d also think the best slingers should focus on the murinok’s eyes. It’s gonna be a hard shot, but if we’re lucky, we might blind it or at least hurt it.”
“What about the archers?” Jodin asked. “Should they shoot its head too?”
“I doubt arrows can get through its armor,” Tovak said. “They should be waiting for the murinok to rear up. When it does, they should aim for the weak point between the plates. If arrows don’t work, then we will have to get in close and use spears. That’s when it will really get dangerous.”
Gorabor stared at his friend in growing horror and let out a long, worried breath. “You are crazy.”
“That’s what I think,” Logath said.
“I’m good with the plan so far,” Jodin said, sounding almost eager for what was to come.
Tovak wondered if Jodin felt the need to prove himself.
“Aye,” Thegdol said. “It’s as solid a plan as any.” The sergeant turned to Jodin and Logath. “Go back and explain to your squads what we’re going to do.”
“I can’t get you to reconsider this, can I?” Logath asked Thegdol.
“No.”
With that, the two squad leaders moved back to their squads, gathered them up, and started explaining the plan.
“Thanks a lot,” Gorabor said, sarcasm thick in his voice. “You could have picked someone else, you know . . . to be murinok bait with you.”
“Someone had to get the duty,” Tovak said, “and I’d rather share it with a friend.”
“I’m already beginning to regret naming you friend,” Gorabor said, then grew serious, eyes roving the boulder field. “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Thegdol said, “we are.”
“Then,” Gorabor said to Tovak, his voice hardening with resolve, “I’ve got your back.”
“I knew you would,” Tovak said. “It’s why I chose you.”
Tovak turned his gaze forward and began scanning the rock field to their front. Nothing moved. Where was it?
“They’re ready,” Thegdol said. “I’ll be with Jodin. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. Neither of you have anything to prove. Understand me?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Tovak said.
“And you?” Thegdol said when Gorabor did not immediately reply.
Gorabor was staring out into the boulder field, his gaze distant. Thegdol nudged him.
“No unnecessary risks,” Gorabor said. “Got it.”
“Good luck.” With that, Thegdol moved back. Tovak watched him go for a moment and suddenly felt terribly alone. Then he turned to Gorabor.
“You ready?”
“Did you seriously just ask me that?” Gorabor asked. “No, of course I’m not ready. We’re hunting a fully grown murinok. Who’s ready for that kind of thing? Me? No, sir, no how.”
“Well, neither am I,” Tovak said. “Stay back about five feet and keep an eye out. You see it, you tell me immediately.”
“You’ll be the second to know,” Gorabor said. “That is, unless I’m running for my life. Then you are on your own.”
“Very funny,” Tovak said.
“Who’s joking?” Gorabor said, then grinned.
Tovak cast a sidelong glance at Gorabor, and a feeling of friendship—no, kinship—filled him. The danger he was about to face didn’t seem as daunting, nor did he feel alone anymore. Gorabor had his back, and it was enough.
Without another word, he turned and started forward, deeper into the boulder field.
Tovak moved slowly, taking two or three steps before pausing to scan their surroundings. He was sure the murinok would be lurking in wait, somewhere out in the boulder field. He saw nothing. So, he kept going, one slow and careful step after another. Halfway through the field, he came to a complete stop. He searched the rocks, scanning about them while straining with his ears. Still nothing. Where was it?
He kept going. Slowly, steadily, they worked their way to the far side of the field, where the forest continued up the hill before them. He glanced back at Thegdol, who, with the two squads, was less than five yards behind. The sergeant gave him an encouraging nod.
Tovak stepped back into the forest. It was thick with evidence of the creature. Tree trunks were scratched free of bark, while others had been snapped in two like a twig. There were tracks nearly everywhere, but still no creature.
Tovak paused and went to a knee. He pulled out his waterskin and took a drink, then passed it over to Gorabor, who drank and then handed it back. Despite the day not being overly hot, he was perspiring heavily from the climb.
“How large a range do these things have?” Gorabor asked.
Tovak looked over at his friend and then turned his gaze back to the terrain about them with new eyes. “I don’t know. I’d not considered that.”
“Since this one is larger than the murinok you took down,” Gorabor said, “it must need to eat more.”
“To eat more,” Tovak said, finishing the thought, “it must have a larger hunting ground, range farther afield.”
“Makes sense to me,” Gorabor said.
“What’s the holdup?” Thegdol had come forward.
“We were thinking,” Gorabor said, “that since it’s a larger creature, it must range farther afield for game.”
Thegdol scowled at that. He pointed ahead. “How do we know, if we continue forward, we are heading towards its lair or den or whatever you want to call it?”
“We don’t,” Tovak said.
“Can you track it?” Thegdol asked.
“There are tracks all over,” Tovak said, pointing down to the ground. “I can’t tell what’s new and old. What I can tell you is that the creature’s been all over this ground, so we’re in the right place.”
“I see,” Thegdol said, considering the problem. “So, the direction we’re headed is as good as any at this point?”
Tovak thought about that for a moment. He felt they were heading in the right direction. He was sure of it. He had had such feelings in the past, and when he’d followed them, they had panned out right. Something was tugging him onward, urging him forward, almost like a sixth sense. “I . . . .” Tovak paused, unsure about continuing.
“What?” Thegdol asked.
“I think we’re headed in the right direction,” Tovak said, thoughts racing
and trying to come up with a plausible explanation that did not make him sound crazy. He had earned some respect and did not want to lose it. “The farther up the slope we climb, the more tracks there are.”
Thegdol considered that a moment. “Very well, we will continue.”
Tovak stood and started again, slowly climbing the forested slope, with Gorabor following a few steps behind. A half mile up found them emerging from the forest into a rocky canyon, with sparse vegetation and towering walls. Marks of the creature’s passage were everywhere, including reddish scrape marks against the stones and conical dents from its legs pressed into the loose ground. There was also an increased number of the black, chalky droppings left by the thing. Tovak glanced back at Thegdol, who motioned for him to continue.
The canyon was about two hundred yards across and still there was no sign of the creature. The ground became loose with scree and there were more tracks now than before. After another quarter mile, they came to a narrower area in the canyon, about seventy-five yards across, where the boulders had been dug up, pushed outward, and piled along the sides of what were now vertical cliff walls rising at least three hundred feet on either side. Had the creature pushed the rocks to the side? If so, it must have incredible strength.
The whole area smelled of decay. Tovak wiped sweat from his brow. There were long dirt mounds ahead. They came across a deep trench. From the looks of it, the creature had dug it out. Tovak wondered to what purpose.
He climbed down into the trench and then out the other side, stopping to offer Gorabor a hand up after him. They went another ten feet and came to an abrupt halt. The scene before them, as ominous as it might have otherwise been, was not at all what he had expected. At first, Tovak did not fully understand what he was seeing. Then, it dawned on him. A tremendous fight had taken place here and the evidence was all around.
Great swaths of the grass had been trampled or gouged up. Boulders had been shattered. Dozens of juvenile murinoks, less than two feet in length, littered the area. Some had been crushed into the dirt, others seemingly torn apart. And at the center of it all, on its side, lay the armored shell of a mighty murinok. It was ten feet wide and at least thirty feet long.
Tovak puffed out his cheeks and allowed his hands holding his spear to relax. He moved slowly forward, with Gorabor at his back. The murinok had been gutted, and the meat inside removed. From the glistening nature of the entrails, which had been left in a large heaps off to the side, he judged that the kill was relatively fresh. Flies buzzed madly about in a frenzy.
Someone had beaten them to the prize.
“Sweet gods,” Gorabor said, coming up to stand beside him. “Look at the size of that thing.”
“Archers,” Thegdol barked from behind Tovak, startling him. The sergeant had come up and stood just a few feet away. Thegdol was looking back at the squads. “Take up a position by those boulders, there and there. Yes, I know it will require some climbing, but I want you to have some elevation. Get to it. Jodin,” Thegdol continued, “take your squad a short ways ahead. Tell me what you find.”
“Thegdol,” Jodin said, a strange note to his voice.
The sergeant turned, as did Tovak and Gorabor, to look at the corporal. Jodin held a long arrow in his hand, the tip broken off. The arrow had black fletching on the end. Thegdol walked over and took the arrow. He studied it for a moment, then dropped it. The sergeant rubbed his bearded jaw and glanced around. Having apparently spotted something, he stepped over to a small tree that had been knocked down in the struggle. He pulled a broken spear with a wicked-looking iron point from under its leafy branches.
“Orcs,” Thegdol said.
Tovak gave a start at the news. He began studying the ground around the carcass, his eyes searching. Amongst the signs of a fight, there were tracks all around, large boot prints.
“They got here first,” Thegdol said, his eyes running over the remains of the monster. He dropped the spear. It landed with a solid thud in the dirt.
“Sergeant,” Jodin said, having come forward with his squad. Logath was with him as well. “Do you still want me to move up the canyon?”
“No,” Thegdol said and pointed towards where the canyon bent out of view fifty yards away. “Send Staggen up around that bend to eyeball what’s there. I need to know if there is anything worth seeing.”
“Thegdol,” Logath said, his eyes flicking to the remains of the creature, “we need to get out of here, before we’re discovered.”
Thegdol turned an unhappy look on Logath, but he did not immediately reply.
Jodin stepped away, and within moments, Staggen was moving up the canyon at a jog.
“Seeing the size of this thing,” Logath continued, “we would not have been able to take it ourselves, and if we’d tried, we would have surely lost good boys, but they took it down.”
And suddenly, Tovak understood where Logath was going with his line of thought.
“Logath is right,” Tovak said. “We need to go.”
Logath’s eyes snapped to Tovak. So too did Jodin and Thegdol.
“If I had to guess,” Logath said, “they would have needed at least fifty, possibly more, to take such a monster down. And the gods only know how many casualties they took in the doing of it.” Logath turned his gaze back to Thegdol. “Our duty now is clear. We must report what we’ve learned.”
“He’s right,” Jodin said, “we need to report this to Benthok.”
Thegdol turned his gaze back to Tovak.
“On the way here, did you see any other tracks?” Thegdol asked. “Orc tracks?”
Tovak shook his head. “No, Sergeant, I did not.”
“Anyone?” Thegdol asked, looking around. “On the hike up here, did anyone see orc tracks? Or anything that could have been a footprint?”
No one said anything.
Staggen came jogging back. He was sweating and breathing heavily.
“Around the bend,” Staggen said. “There are wagon tracks and the remains of what looks like a funeral pyre.”
“A funeral pyre?” the sergeant asked. “Any idea on how many were lost?”
“No, Sergeant,” Staggen said, “but it was a big pyre. They must have lost a good number against the murinok. Oh, and there were priestly marks in the dirt around the pyre, arcane runes and such.”
“They have a priest,” Logath said with sudden alarm. “Thegdol, we really need to leg it.”
Tovak felt a revulsion rise within him at the thought of such a dark priest.
“How far does the canyon go?” Thegdol asked.
“I could not tell,” Staggen said. “At least another three hundred yards before it turns again. After that . . . .” Staggen held up his arms.
“We’re leaving,” Thegdol said. “We melt back into the forest, as quietly as we came, and pray we’ve not been seen. Let’s get moving.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tovak found himself once again on point, working his way steadily through the forest. As he moved, he scanned about, searching for any hint of movement or tracks. The forest was still. Not even a breeze rustled the trees.
About a mile from the canyon, Tovak spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Off to his right, in a small clearing that had been created where a tree had fallen, he thought he saw some marks on the ground. He paused and looked closer. The carpet of pine needles had been disturbed. He stopped and held up a hand. Both squads took a knee. The archers brought up their bows, arrows held at the ready.
Tovak moved over to the edge of the clearing. He scanned the ground and felt a stab of alarm by what he saw. He turned and motioned to Thegdol. Jodin came forward with the sergeant.
“What is it?” Jodin asked in a hushed tone.
Tovak pointed. “Tracks.”
“Ours?” Logath asked, joining them. “On the way out?”
“No,” Tovak said and then pointed to their left. “Our tracks are over that way about thirty yards.”
“Are you sure?” Thegdol asked.
“Very,” Tovak said. “Our boots are smaller and shaped differently than these.”
Tovak reached down and examined one of the prints. It appeared identical to the tracks he’d seen in the canyon.
“It looks like at least six sets of tracks,” Thegdol said.
“Boots and,” Logath said, “are those claw marks?”
“Goblins,” Jodin said. “The boots must belong to orcs.”
“Or humans,” Logath said. “We know some humans work with the enemy.”
Tovak pointed the way they’d just come. “From the direction of the heel and toe impressions . . . they were headed that way, roughly towards the canyon we just came from.”
Thegdol glanced in that direction and ran his fingers through the braids of his beard.
“How old are these tracks?” Logath asked.
“I think they are at least two days old,” Tovak said. “They don’t seem fresher than that. Could be longer, but not by much.”
“Are you certain?” Thegdol asked.
“Certain?” Tovak asked. “No, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.”
“Well, you’re Academy-trained,” Thegdol said. “I will take your word on it.”
“Could they be part of the group that tackled the murinok?” Logath asked.
Tovak gave it thought, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see any evidence of orcs leaving the canyon from the side we came in at.”
“Those wagon tracks back in the canyon,” Jodin said, “were headed in the opposite direction, moving farther down the canyon. I didn’t see any going the way we came in.”
“Could we have missed tracks?” Logath asked.
“We could have,” Tovak admitted, “but not a large group like the one that took down the murinok. There would have been prints all over.”
“How far away is our camp?” Logath asked, looking in the direction the tracks were going. The corporal seemed unsettled, almost itching to be away.
“I think a little over a mile,” Thegdol said.
“That way,” Tovak said and pointed.
“These tracks,” Jodin said, “don’t seem to be coming directly from where the section is camped. Is it possible they went by us, without knowing we were there?”
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