“How touching.” There was unalloyed sarcasm in her reply. “But if it really was them,” she mused, “where would they be going?”
“There are a few settlements down at the tip of the inlet, ma’am, mostly small. The biggest is Ruffetts View. All Mani, I believe. So your Majesty would be welcomed.”
“I don’t give a damn if they welcome me or not. They can ally themselves with me if they choose. If it turns out that anybody there harbours the band they’re my enemies. Alliances are made to be broken, if it serves my interests.”
“There are Manis in our own ranks, ma’am,” he reminded her.
“Then it will be a testing time for them, won’t it? Organise the rabble, General. We march to Ruffetts View.”
Well back from the army’s rump stood what was little more than a copse, although it was dignified by being named a wood. A clandestine party inhabited it, watchful for patrols whose sole job was rounding up deserters. They numbered about two dozen and they were all orcs.
The highest-ranking soldier present, as attested by the tattoos patterning his cheeks, was a corporal, and he had a plan.
“Even taking a loop round the army we can get to the inlet first, providing we travel light and fast. Then we stick to the coast most of the way to Ruffetts.”
“Are we
sure
the Wolverines are there?” a troubled-looking grunt asked.
“So they reckon. One of the dragon handlers reported as much, a couple of hours ago. I was there, I heard it myself.”
“Desertion, it’s a big move,” another waverer said. “Leaving Jennesta’s downright dangerous.”
“More dangerous than staying with her?” the corporal came back.
That got a broad murmur of agreement.
“Right!” somebody called out. “Look what she did to the General!”
Others took up the list of grievances.
“The executions!”
“Dumb orders and crazy suicide missions!”
“And the floggings!”
“All right, all right!” The corporal waved them silent. “We all know her crimes. Question is, what we going to do about it? Stay here and waste our lives for her cause or join Stryke?”
“What do we really know about this Stryke?” the first grunt shouted. “How do we know he’ll be any better a leader?”
“Talk sense. Because he’s one of our own, and he’s been running circles round her lackeys. If you don’t want to come, that’s fine. The way I look at it, the life we got now ain’t no life at all for an orc. Die here, die there, it’s all the same.” Most of them were nodding. “This way at least we get a chance to hit back!”
“At Jennesta
and
the humans!” an orc cried.
“That’s right!” the corporal agreed. “And we won’t be the last to rally to his banner. You know how many others are whispering about going over to him. Well, the time for talking’s done!”
“Do you think it’s true that the gods sent him to liberate us?” a voice piped up.
The corporal scanned their faces. “I don’t know about that. But I reckon he’s heaven-sent however he came to us. Let’s stand with him!”
It was enough to tip the balance. They were decided.
“Follow Stryke!” the corporal yelled at them, and they yelled back.
“Follow Stryke!”
Total darkness. Nothing to hear, to touch, to smell. An utter void
.
A pinprick of light. It grew rapidly. So rapidly it was like flying out of a well, and the rush gave him vertigo
.
Sensation flooded in
.
Brightness, a soft breeze against his skin, the scent of grass after rain, the sound of lapping water
.
He realised he was clutching something. Looking down, he found he had a staff in his hands. And he saw that his feet were planted on robust timber planks. Uncomprehending, he lifted his head
.
He was near the far end of a wooden jetty extending out into a vast tract of lucent water. Sunlight dappled its rippling surface, glinting intensely. The lake’s farther shore was lined with trees in full leaf. Behind them rose gentle hills, then far-off blue mountains with their crests in downy clouds. Fragile birdsong attended the perfect day
.
“Come back, dreamer.”
He turned quickly
.
She was there. Straight, proud, magnificent. Wearing a shimmering black feather headdress and clasping her own staff. Directing a steel smile at him
.
He started to say something
.
Instantly she snapped into a combat stance. She had the staff pointing at him, holding it shoulder-height like a spear, hands well apart. Her body was primed, ready
.
The blow came so fast he hardly saw it
.
Pure instinct brought up his stave, thrust out to take the tremendous crack she delivered
.
He was shocked
.
She drew back, flipped her staff so she held it level and attacked again. Once more he blocked her hit with the shank, feeling its impact soak into his taut arm muscles. Ducking, she tried a low stroke, aimed at his waist, but he was quick enough to deflect it
.
“Wake up!” she scolded, dancing out of reach. She was grinning and her eyes shined
.
Then it dawned on him that this was no unprovoked attack. The female was paying him the compliment, high in orc terms, of a mock duel. Although to any other race the idea that there might be anything complimentary or sham about it would ring hollow. It wasn’t unusual for orc sparring to result in broken bones and even the occasional fatality
.
“Stop resisting and start fighting!” she cried, confirming it. “It’s no fun, you just parrying!”
In responding defensively he’d risked insulting her. Now he entered into the spirit
.
He leapt forward and swept at her legs. Had he connected she would have toppled. But she jumped nimbly, clearing the shaft, and immediately returned a shot of her own. It missed more by luck than any design of his
.
They circled each other, knees bent, stooping to offer less of a target
.
She lashed out with a high swipe to his head. He countered it with one end of his staff, chancing it snapping, and her pole bounced off at the impact. His follow-up targeted her midriff, and would have knocked the air out of her if she hadn’t batted it away
.
Her comeback was a rain of heavy blows that had him swirling his staff like a juggler’s club to avoid them. A second’s let-up allowed him to seize the offensive again but hammering at her with a will only saw his blows fended off with swift dexterity
.
They skipped apart
.
He was enjoying it. The exhilaration of combat coursed through him, quickening his mind and springing his step. As to the female, she was a dazzling combatant, all an orc could hope for in a sparring partner
.
They set to again. He swiped. She dodged and spun. Their staffs clacked with blow and counter blow. He weaved, attacked, withdrew. She melted from his sorties like liquid, then gave back as good as she got. Up and down the jetty they fought, rapping their woods, powering forward, being forced back
.
Then she put out a downward stroke to his shoulder. He veered. Her staff smashed onto one of the jetty’s timber uprights and snapped
.
He caught her wrist and they laughed
.
She cast her broken staff aside. It clattered on the boards. “Shall we call it a stand-off?”
He nodded, discarding his own weapon
.
“You’re a master in the profession of arms,” she panted
.
He returned the tribute. “And you’re well versed in the way of the warrior.”
They regarded each other with heightened respect. He found her glistening muscles, her moist sweatiness, particularly fetching
.
The moment went by. She asked, “Have you yet achieved your goal? The task you spoke of, that means so much?”
“No. There are many blocks on my path. Too many, I think.”
“You can get round them.”
He didn’t see it like that. “The orc way is to go through them.”
“True. But sometimes a feather outweighs a sword.”
His confusion was obvious
.
There was a tiny splash close by. A fish, orange and gold with black whiskers, swam into view. It nosed at the reeds growing from under the jetty
.
She nodded at it. “There’s a creature that doesn’t know the limits of its world, and in its ignorance has happiness of a sort.” She knelt and skimmed her hand through the water. The fish darted away. “Be like a fish, and what stands in your way will be no more than water.”
“I can’t swim.”
She laughed aloud, but there was no trace of derision in it. “I mean only this: think on how much better you are than a fish.” While he pondered that, she stood and added, “Why is it that when we meet I feel there’s something almost . . . ethereal about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Other-worldly. As though you’re here but not quite. I remember our encounters as being more like dreams than reality.”
He wanted to know what she meant, and to tell her that’s how it was for him, literally
.
But he fell back into the void
.
He came round with a start.
There were reins in his hands. He was riding with the band on the trail to Ruffetts View.
It was mid-morning. The day was overcast and drizzly.
He shook his head, then rubbed the bridge of his nose with forefinger and thumb.
“You all right, Stryke?”
Coilla rode beside him. She looked concerned.
“Yes. Just a bit —”
“Another dream?”
He nodded.
“But you only closed your eyes for half a minute.”
He was confounded. “You’re sure?”
“Maybe less than that. Just a few seconds.”
“It seemed . . . so much longer.”
“What was it about?” she asked tentatively.
“The female was . . . there.” He was still muzzy-headed. “She told me things I sort of understood, but . . . not quite.” He caught her eye. “Don’t look at me like that.”
She held up her hands to mollify him. “Just a little puzzled, that’s all. What else?”
Stryke creased his brow, perplexed by the memory. “She said I seemed kind of . . .
unreal
to her.”
For want of anything better to say, Coilla replied, “Well, why shouldn’t a dream have dreams?”
That was too deep for him. “And we had a mock duel,” he added.
She raised an eyebrow, aware that in certain circumstances a mock duel could be the orc equivalent of flirting.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But this is somebody in a dream!”
“Maybe,” Coilla ventured cautiously, “you’ve created your perfect female. In your mind.”
“Oh, that makes me sound really sane,” he came back sarcastically.
“No, no, no, I didn’t mean that. It’s understandable, in a way. You’ve never mated. Few of us have, given the life we lead. But you can’t deny your . . . natural urges forever. So it comes out in dreams.”
“How can I think about having an alliance with somebody who doesn’t exist? Unless I really am halfway to madness.”
“You’re not, trust me. I mean, perhaps this dream female is what you want, not what you can have.”
“It doesn’t feel like that. Then again . . .” He couldn’t explain. “I’ll tell you one thing that really pisses me off though. I never get to learn her damn
name
.”
Several hours passed uneventfully.
By the afternoon Stryke had to order another halt to replenish their food and water before the final push to Ruffetts. Groups were sent off to hunt and fish. Others were assigned to gather wood, roots and berries.
Stryke left Coilla out of the foraging parties. He steered her well away from the others, and they settled by a thicket on the inlet’s ocean side.
“What is it?” she asked, thinking that perhaps he wanted to talk about his troubling dreams again.
“Something I noticed earlier. I don’t know what to make of it.” He reached into his belt pouch and brought out the stars, then laid them next to each other on the grass between them. “I was looking at these and . . . Well, let’s see if I can do it again.”
She was puzzled, and not a little intrigued.
He selected the sandy-coloured seven-spiked star they got from Homefield, followed by the dark blue one with four spikes from Scratch. An intense look on his face, he brought the two artifacts together. A minute or two’s fiddling ensued. “I don’t know if . . .” There was a dull click. “Ah! There.”
The stars had melded together, held fast by several of their spikes, although it was hard to see how they could.
“How did you
do
that?” she said.
“I’m not really sure, to be honest.” He passed the coupled stars to her.
Even close up she couldn’t quite grasp what the mechanism was that united the two objects. Yet they fitted together so perfectly they now looked like they were designed as a single piece. “This can’t be right,” she muttered, turning the thing over in her hands.
“I know. It’s almost as though it shouldn’t be possible, isn’t it?”
She nodded abstractly, engrossed by the mystery. “I guess whoever made them was very clever.” That didn’t convince even her. She had never come across a craftsbeing this smart. Tugging at them, she asked, “Do they come apart again as easily?”
“Takes a bit of jiggling and some force. But maybe that’s because I’m not doing it quite right.” He held out his hand and she gave them back. “Thing is, they look right, don’t they? As though they were meant to do this. It’s not just a fluke, is it?”
“No, I don’t think it is.” She couldn’t take her eyes off them. “You found this out by chance?”
“Sort of. Like I said, I was looking at them, and suddenly I . . .
knew
. It seemed obvious somehow.”
“You’ve hidden talents. It never would have occurred to me.” Her gaze was still on the linked stars. There was something about their union that seemed to defy logic. “But what does it mean?”