The Fall of Dorkhun (7 page)

“Stay down,” one said in the common language, jabbing him in the mouth with a club.

Leinjar’s head snapped back, and his mouth filled with blood.

“You not try again that,” the orc added, his accent poor.

Leinjar sat still, staring at the ground and spitting blood. His worst fear had come to life; he had been taken alive. He thought about his wife and children, hoping desperately they had made it to safety. The townsfolk had probably had a half hour head start, and if anyone had kept their wits enough to close the gates in the tunnel, that could have bought more time. Torjhien was a major city with a force significant enough to withstand even that invasion. If they made it there, they were safe.

He raised his head and looked around. The sun was just beginning to lighten the horizon, and the terrain was becoming more visible. They were still in Tredjard territory, hardly a mile from the gate. How had the orcs pushed this far north? The reason his gate was so sparsely guarded was because no one believed it susceptible to an immense attack. He had served there for two years and had barely seen any action. Before he had made sergeant, he had served in the infantry at Stahljein to the south, where attacks were regular, and had fought in dozens of battles. When he had been transferred to this gate, he had felt slighted because he had moved so far from combat, believing he would not get the opportunity to rise higher in rank.

“On your feet,” an orc barked, walking through the Tredjards and kicking their legs.

Leinjar, woozy and disoriented, struggled to stand, and the dwarf beside him, an archer who had only been in service for a couple of months, steadied him. Scared to speak, Leinjar nodded his thanks, and the young dwarf nodded back. Then, the orc ordered them to march, so the dwarves shuffled forward in their chains. They marched for two hours without stopping, and each time one would slip or lose pace, those closest would keep him on his feet. When the precession finally stopped, the orcs brought them a barrel of water and let them drink, but no food was offered.

“We’re done for,” one dwarf said to Leinjar.

“You’re a Tredjard,” Leinjar returned. “Conduct yourself.”

“We should’ve fallen back to the tunnels.”

“We did our job,” Leinjar said. “We gave the others a chance.”

“Nonsense.”

“We held them long enough,” the archer from before said. “The sergeant was right to hold the gate.”

“What do you know, green pea? Thanks to him we’re in chains.”

The orc that had struck Leinjar earlier grabbed the disgruntled dwarf by the hair and spun him around. In his chains, the dwarf couldn’t resist, and the orc smashed his face with its club. The dwarf slumped to his knees, and the orc struck him again on top of the head. The dwarf crumpled into a pile and lay twitching.

“No talk,” the orc said, waving his club at Leinjar and the archer.

Then, the orc called for the barrel to be taken to the wagon at the front and barked for the dwarves to resume marching. They marched until the sun was at its zenith, then paused for more water. No one spoke, not even a whisper. In the distance to the south, a thick column of smoke rose into the sky, and Leinjar calculated it must be the fortress near Turljein. That was the only explanation for how the orcs had pushed to his gate with such a massive force. If they’d razed the fortress, there wouldn’t have been much to slow them. He couldn’t imagine the size of the force it would have taken to conquer the fortress.

After a few minutes rest, they continued marching. The orcs pushed them hard but not to the point of exhaustion, stopping for water every couple of hours. As the sun set, several loaves of dark bread were tossed onto the ground, and the Tredjards scrambled to grab it. Leinjar got a full loaf and divided it into quarters, then gave three portions to dwarves who hadn’t been able to push into the pile. He found a decent spot on the uneven ground and sat down to eat.

The bread was gone in a couple of bites and did little for his hunger, but Leinjar didn’t care. His thoughts were with his family. He had not spent a night away from his children since his transfer from Stahljein, and even then, he had not been away from his oldest for more than two nights. He fought against his darkest fears that something had happened to them and imagined them safe and warm and well-fed in Torjhien. The thought gave him a little comfort, but he couldn’t undo the knot in his stomach. It burned and ached, not from hunger, but from the terror that he had failed to protect his family, and now that he was in chains, there was nothing he could do.

Once the sun set, he fell asleep quickly, but it was a fitful, restless slumber, and after a couple of hours, he bolted up from the dew-damp ground. His hands shook, and the knot in his stomach tightened. He looked around at the other Tredjards, unsure what to do. Every instinct roared for him to return to his sons, to make sure they were safe in their beds, but the irons that bound his wrists and ankles were too solid. For the rest of the night, he sat there, crying.

When the sun rose, he was exhausted, but the orcs shouted for them to march, so he staggered to his feet and moved forward. That day proceeded much like the previous, but in the late afternoon, a line of wagons appeared in the distance, and the orcs cheered. By sunset, they reached the wagons and were greeted by a new group of orcs that inspected each dwarf and ordered them one by one to board specific wagons. Leinjar climbed inside, happy to see the young archer was there. He sat beside him and waited for whatever was going to happen.

After several minutes, an orc tossed several more loaves of bread in with them and set a barrel of water on the floor. The dwarves scrambled for the food and, in their haste, spilled much of the water, but after two days of marching, they were too hungry to care. Leinjar ate half of his loaf and tucked the other half inside his blood-soaked tunic just in case they weren’t offered more food. The archer saw what he had done and followed his lead.

Four orcs returned to the wagon and lifted the steel ramp to close them in. As it slammed shut, the inside of the wagon went dark, and panic ran through him. Outside, the orcs fastened locks to secure the ramp, and he struggled to regain his composure. Then, the wagon lurched forward, jostling them against each other, and the dwarves shoved each other and growled curses back and forth. The tension continued to rise until the archer shouted:

“Settle down! We’re still dwarves, not beasts!”

“He’s right,” another dwarf returned in the darkness. “Let’s keep our wits.”

The others grumbled their agreement, and several apologized to each other. For a moment, Leinjar imagined they were inside the barracks, arguing over sleeping arrangements, but the knot in his stomach and the trembling in his hands quickly reminded him he was as far from there as he could be. He hung his head and stared into the blackness.

“Sir, what should we do?” the archer asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t have any answers.”

“You’ll think of something.”

“I wish they’d taken my life,” he said, his voice low and distant.

“Don’t say that. It’s awful to think.”

Leinjar didn’t respond. Everything that mattered to him was gone, probably lost forever – his rank, his post, his soldiers, his wife, his children – he would never know these things again. Never in his life had he wished to be dead, but in the back of the wagon in darkness like the deep, he hated being alive.

“Where are they taking us?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He cared little for the world outside the Tredjard lands and hadn’t bothered to learn geography.

“I’ll tell you where,” a dwarf said from the front. “Koshlonsen.”

“Where’s that?” the archer asked.

“Somewhere we never wanted to see,” the dwarf answered.

“No more questions,” Leinjar huffed.

The dwarves fell silent, and the sounds of the wagon rolling along the uneven ground were loud and merciless. One by one, they stretched out as best they could in the tight quarters and tried to rest. Leinjar feel asleep, too, but a couple of hours later, he sat up again and called for his sons. Another dwarf snapped for him to keep quiet, and he curled into the fetal position and fought against the waves of anxiety coursing through him. Each time a wave would pass, he would gain a moment of poise, but then, another wave would wash through him and cause the trembling to resume. In that manner, he lay on the floor of the wagon wide awake for the second night in a row.

***

By the time he reached the Slithsythe Plantation, time had ceased to matter. The trip to Koshlonsen had taken over a month, and he had remained on the auction block for several days. He hadn’t slept a full night’s sleep since his capture and spent most of his days sitting and staring at nothing. No orc wanted such a lethargic, grief-stricken dwarf. Finally, a squat orc with a bad limp had stopped at his stall and inspected his physique and made an offer to the trader. After much haggling, Leinjar was sold for a small pile of copper coins.

When he reached the plantation, he and three other slaves were stripped and lined up single file. One by one, they were branded, and when the hot metal touched his hip, Leinjar howled. Then, a dozen well-armed orcs surrounded him and pointed for him to march across the manicured grass to the edge of the fields. They led him to an enormous iron cage with razor blades and spikes ringing the top. The orcs shouted for the Tredjards inside to stand on the far end of the cage, and the dwarves obeyed. Then, ten orcs stood near the door, their pikes readied for any who might charge. One orc unlocked the door, and another shoved Leinjar inside. Behind him, the door slammed shut and was quickly locked.

The ground was packed hard and stank of rotten food and feces, and Leinjar stood frozen, not sure if he should introduce himself or hide in the rectangular building in the center of the cage. Once the orcs were gone, the Tredjards approached him, and one very muscular dwarf, who clearly was their leader, stepped so close their noses touched.

“These are the rules,” the dwarf said with rotten breath. “We fight for meat. You fight well, we let you live. You don’t, we squeeze you through those bars. Understand?”

Leinjar stared blankly. Part of him wanted the dwarves to kill him.

“Are you stupid?” the dwarf asked.

“No.”

“Then, you best answer me.”

“I understand.”

“We start practice soon. Be ready.”

With that, the dwarf turned and strode across the cage, and the others followed him, some glaring at Leinjar with expressions that made him shiver. He walked to the rectangular room and went inside. There were no furnishings or decorations, save a few crude drawings on the walls, and the dirt floor was packed as hard as the rest of the ground inside the cage. Leinjar went to the far corner and lay down, curling into the fetal position. He had heard rumors at Koshlonsen that the orcs had overrun many cities, taking all of the adult males as slaves and some of the female but killing all the children and elderly. But no one knew anything about Torjhien, and not knowing his children’s fate was the most torture. He buried his face in his arm and sobbed.

“What kind of sissy have they thrown in here?” the leader of the cage said, standing over him.

“Just leave me alone,” Leinjar said. “I’ve lost everything.”

“We’re starting practice. On your feet or I’ll stomp you where you lay.”

“I just want my life back,” Leinjar said, looking up. His face was streaked with tears and snot flowed from his nose.

“Get this through your head, whoever you were is gone. Here you either fight and survive or you die a very painful death.”

“I couldn’t protect my family.”

“Your family is dead,” the dwarf returned. His face was checkered with scars, and he was missing several teeth.

“Don’t say that.”

“On your feet,” the dwarf said, reaching down and grabbing Leinjar’s beard.

An image of his children flashed through his head, and the empty cavern where his heart had been ached with a pain he couldn’t comprehend. The knot in his stomach swelled until he thought he would explode, and as the leader pulled on his beard, his pain morphed into anger. Suddenly, he stopped crying and stared at the leader, his eyes wide with rage.

“Stand up,” the leader said, his voice low and threatening.

Leinjar sprang to his feet and struck the leader in the forearm, knocking his grasp from Leinjar’s beard. Before the leader could recover, Leinjar struck him in the chest, knocking the wind from him. The dwarf stumbled backwards from surprise, and Leinjar drove into him with all he had. Something inside him had broken, and he couldn’t control the fury. He pounded on the leader with every ounce of strength, forcing the bigger dwarf across the room and against the wall. As the dwarf slid down the wall, bleeding and wheezing, the other dwarves charged into the room and wrestled Leinjar to the ground.

“Get off me!” Leinjar screamed, struggling against their weight. The dwarves held him still until he stopped moving.

The leader spit out a mouthful of blood and pulled himself to his hands and knees. He glared at Leinjar for several heartbeats, but then, a smile slowly spread across his face.

“That’s more like it,” he said. “Let him up.”

The dwarves obeyed, and Leinjar scrambled to his feet, turning to face them.