The Game of Fates (25 page)

Trallik
observed the sleeping forms for several moments.  They certainly seemed to be
sleeping, even the one orc who sat at an entrance opposite to his own,
supposedly the lone guard they had posted.  Scattered about the orcs were their
kits; swords, spears, bags of rations, and… blankets!

Checking
his equipment to ensure he would make no sounds to wake up the unwary guardians
of the blankets, Trallik climbed slowly over the lip of the balcony, staying
low and against the wall.  He knew that orcs could see in complete darkness,
but they didn’t see heat, rather they saw the same as they would in the light,
but in shades of gray.

Padding
slowly along the wall, he passed the first couple of sleeping orcs.  They were
obviously warriors out on a patrol or raid.  They slept in their armor, their
weapons near at hand with a scattering of shields propped against the walls
next to them.  As Trallik passed by their shields, he saw that one of the orcs
must have rolled around quite a bit, the deer fur that served him as a blanket
having mostly fallen off in his sleep.

Trallik
carefully tip-toed through the sand to where the sleeping orc lay.  His feet
were caught in the fur.  Frowning, Trallik thought for a moment.  The last
thing he wanted to do was take a chance of waking up the orcs, but prodded on
by the thought of his love freezing to death down in the lower pool chamber,
Trallik lifted one of the orc’s feet up by the pant leg, then carefully lifted
the fur off of the orc’s other foot and from around the foot he was lifting,
looking back carefully at the orc’s face to ensure it wasn’t waking up. 
Finally, after several moments of intense stress, Trallik pulled the last
corner of fur away from orc, then wrapped it up around his two arms, ensuring
that none of it was dangling down where he could trip on it.

Seeing
a bag of dried meat sitting open by the next orc over, Trallik stuffed the deer
fur under one arm and carefully grabbed the sack of dried meat by the neck. 
Taking another look around to ensure that no one was awake, Trallik padded
softly through the sand back toward the balcony where he’d come from.  Smiling
to himself about how easy it was, he looked back to where the orcs lay,
completely unaware of what he had just done.  Then, turning back to the
balcony, he let out a yelp as he was stopped cold by a spear pointed at his
neck.

Standing
in front of Trallik the kobold warrior holding the spear began to look
worried.  Trallik’s yelp had woken up the orc that was supposed to be standing
guard.  Now, as he looked beyond Trallik, he could see that the orc guard was
going to see them.

“Ye
go!” the kobold spearman whispered urgently, pointing with his spear to the
slope Trallik had crawled up.  Trallik couldn’t tell, but he thought the kobold
with the spear might actually be trying to help him escape.

Not
bothering to look behind himself, Trallik hurried to the balcony’s edge,
jumping down onto the slope, the slate rock of it giving way, causing him to
slide to the bottom amidst flows of slate and loose dirt.  The spearman was
right behind him.

Getting
to his feet, Trallik gathered the deer fur and the bag of dried meat.  From up
where they’d come from the voice of the orc guard was yelling something in
orcish and both kobolds heard the sound of orcs being roused from their sleep. 
Not waiting for the other kobold, Trallik stumbled through the rubble and loose
rock of the chamber toward the far entrance.

The
kobold spearman grabbed his arm.  “No!  Ye go!” he said urgently, though not
with a commanding tone, pointing with his snout toward a side passage.  “Ye
snik!”

Trallik
didn’t have time for this.  Trikki was cold, and he needed to get back to her.

“No,”
he said firmly, “I’m going back to my lifemate in the other chamber.  She’s
cold, and I have a fur to help her get warm.  Besides, I need to wake her up so
the orcs don’t find her.”

The
spearman looked at Trallik for a second, the sharp look in his alert eyes
softening somewhat.  “Right, but let’s hurry,” the spearman said, his speech
changing from that of the degenerate northern gens to clear Sorcerer’s Tongue.

Trallik
looked at the spearman strangely as he walked backwards toward the entrance. 
“You’re not a northerner,” he stated.

“Neither
are you,” The spearman replied, coming up beside Trallik.  “No, my heritage is
Kale Gen, or at least that is where my line comes from.”

Trallik
turned back to the path.  “So am I, and so is my lifemate Trikki.”

The
other kobold was surprised.  “Trikki, you say?  You’re with Trikki?”

“Yes. 
Why?  Do you know her?”

“I
know of her, yes.  She grew up among the outcasts as did I.  She is from a
different family than mine, but our families have traded some over time.”

Behind
the pair, as they picked their way quickly but carefully through a rockslide
that formed the floor of the far entrance, the orcs were making a good amount
of noise.  They didn’t seem to be rushing toward the balcony that the pair had
recently left, nor was there any indication that the orcs had seen which exit
they’d taken from this connecting chamber.

“She
said she never knew her father.  She didn’t say anything about any relatives
other than her mother,” Trallik said, confused by this talk of families.

“No,
you don’t understand.  Among the outcasts we form families from those who cross
our paths.  Though my family is almost all related by blood, most families are
usually not blood relations.  It’s kind of like… a warrior group I believe you
would call it.”

Trallik
looked at the spearman curiously.  “You’re telling me there are that many
outcasts down here?”

The
spearman was taken aback.  “You don’t know?  There are hundreds of us!  In
fact, though we’re scattered, if you count the Deep Gen, there are probably
more kobolds in the underdark beneath these two valleys than there are in the
Kale Gen.”

Despite
the noise that the orcs were making two chambers away, Trallik stopped and
looked into the spearman’s eyes.  For all Trallik could tell, the spearman
wasn’t playing with him.  Trallik turned and continued hurrying across the
chamber, reaching the cave entrance that led down to where his love lay
shivering.

Within
a short time he was at Trikki’s side again, unfurling the deer fur and wrapping
her in it, rolling her off the cool sand and into the fur as he did so.  Trikki
looked up at him, a smile crossing her face as she recognized Trallik. 
Nuzzling her ear and holding her close for a moment, he finished wrapping her
in the fur and stepped back as she drifted back to sleep.

The
spearman, who had been standing observing the two, found a seat in a
sand-covered hollow of rock.  Once Trallik saw that Trikki was asleep again, he
came and sat next to the spearman.

“I
had no idea there were so many of you.  How did there get to be so many?”

The
spearman shrugged.  “In my case my great-grandparents were exiled by the
chamberlain of the last Lord Kale, though we’ve kept our Kale Gen identity even
down in the underdark.  That’s probably how most of the outcasts came to be
down here, castoffs from either the Kale or Krall Gens, that or they’re
descendants of outcasts from previous generations or descendants of bandits and
adventurers who had bases in the underdark and just never left. 

“The
Deep Gen, however, is different.  When the last Lord Kale disappeared, his
chamberlain proclaimed himself Lord of the Kale Gen.  That was a couple, maybe
a few generations ago.”

Trallik
nodded his head.  He’d heard of that, of course.

“A
few of the outcast families and the Deep Gen are the descendants of the many
kobolds who split off from the Kale Gen back then.  There was literally a whole
warrior group that just up and left for the underdark.  My great-grandfather
was their leader, but leadership of that gen has passed to others since my
great-grandfather’s day.  Down there, they’ve grown over all these years. 
There’s got to be a few thousand of them now.”

Trallik
raised his brow in surprise.  Though he didn’t know exactly how many there were
in the Kale Gen, he didn’t think there were more than probably two thousand. 
To know that, all his life, there had been another gen that had split off from
his own gen living in the underdark below his gen’s home was staggering to him.

“So
what’s your name?” the spearman asked.

“I’m
Trallik, and I too am outcast from the Kale Gen.  My lifemate and I are in need
of friends.”

“Well,
then, Trallik.  Welcome to my outcast family, stay with us for as long as you
may need,” the spearman said, extending his hand to grip forearms with Trallik
in the traditional Kale greeting.  “I am named Kale after the gen of my
heritage.  I am son of Kale and grandson of Kale, I serve as head of our
family.”

K
iria and Myaliae had become
rather close in the last few days.  Though the both of them had been
exceptionally busy, both caring for their company’s animals as well as working
leather had quickly gone from something that took much concentration to
something of a routine.  Through it all the two young females, one an aspiring
wizard, the other an aspiring healer, had rarely been further than a few yards
from each other.

Once
Myaliae began to feel comfortable with the members of this company of Kale Gen
warriors, she began to open up more and more.  Soon, it was all that Jerrig
could do to keep them on the task of cutting leather, as the young females
shared their life histories, hopes, views, aspirations, and knowledge of magic
with each other.  When they were alone, tending to the animals, they even
shared their opinions on the various young males in the company.  It was a
strange and exciting thing to Kiria, who’d never had a sister, and who’d not
had really any close friends, being daughter of the lord of the Kale Gen.

After
a few days, the pair were as close as any two sisters could be; giggling
together, finishing each others sentences, sharing inside jokes with just a
look between them, and working seamlessly together.  After the initial joy of
discovering each other, while they were around the warriors of the company,
however, the pair did try to maintain some semblance of disciplined decorum. 
Sometimes their efforts were more successful than at other times.

Durik
had begun to wonder when, after walking past the pair, they both started to
giggle simultaneously, until he looked back at them, at which point they both
promptly bent themselves in earnest to whatever tasks they had been in the
middle of, all the while little giggles escaping now and again.

On
the more practical side, their friendship had led to a sharing of knowledge in
the couple of evenings that they’d had before working through the night on the
armor.  Kiria had been delighted to discover that Myaliae’s knowledge of magic
was, in many ways, greater than her own.  She had anxiously studied the old
text of her grandmother’s spell book, but with the entire book being written in
Draconic, Kiria had been able to stumble through the most basic parts of it,
and that was it. 

Kiria
found that, while Myaliae’s knowledge was based in the powers that their world,
Dharma Kor, offered up to her, still she had some knowledge of the Draconic
Language which Kiria used to summon the magic that she had studied.  Though
Myaliae’s powers seemed to well up within her and spring forth as summoned,
Myaliae used Draconic to focus the powers that channeled through her.  Being a
rather serious student of her art, one could say a compulsive student of her
art, her understanding of the language of magic was deeper than many of her peers,
most of whom only ever developed a rudimentary grasp of it, which was all the
healer’s role demanded.

Kiria
had been delighted to learn of Myaliae’s understanding.  With no one to mentor
her in the six years since the orc raid that had taken her mother away, Kiria’s
knowledge was basic at best.  But now, with Myaliae’s mentoring on the
language, Kiria had almost been able to decipher the complex algorithms that
held the power of the two battle-spells she had in the book; one by the name of
‘Bolt of Fire’ and another called, aptly enough, ‘Shield’.

Manebrow
hadn’t required her or Myaliae to take a turn at standing watch that afternoon
as the company dozed in preparation for the climb up the Chop, but both of them
had volunteered, not wanting to be seen as somehow weaker or less important
than the rest.  Myaliae didn’t get her turn, as Morigar’s team arrived before
it was to start.  However, Kiria had her turn and spent the entire time working
on the spell named Bolt of Fire.  Eventually, halfway through her watch,
Kiria’s understanding of the ancient tongue proved sufficient and the secrets
of the spell became clear to her.  With excitement she began to commit the
incantations of this new spell to memory, deepening the impressions of the
spell by her constant practice.  After a short time she stood and, picking out
a particularly lanky sapling about the same thickness as her arm, she moved her
hands and mouth through the short series of steps that was the trigger
mechanism to release the power she had committed to her mind already.

With
a suddenness that was almost startling to the young mage, a fiery bolt flew
from the palm of her outstretched hand and snapped the sapling in half.  She
looked around to see if the noise had woken anyone up, but no one stirred. 
Smiling to herself as she stood there with crossed arms, Kiria decided to keep
this little secret to herself… until the right moment, that is.

Keryak
gripped his spear lightly.  The day with its heat had passed, and evening was
already upon the members of Durik’s Company before Morigar, Krebbekar, and the
two Krall Gen scouts came upon the little company camped in the tree line with
only a single picket.  It was probably for the better that Morigar’s team had
delayed so long. 

Manebrow
had let the company sleep the entire day, and they were glad for it.  The night
before with its intense, last minute preparations had worn them out almost as
much as their flight from the great ants less than a week now in the past.  The
effects of the supreme effort of the week before and the preparations of the
last few days hung heavier on some than others, and though he tried not to show
it, Keryak could see that Manebrow felt it more than the rest of them.

Keryak
had been alternately looking up the tall mountain they were camped at the foot
of, and back at the company in their deep slumber.  He was not looking forward
to the climb up the Chop, especially not in his new suit of metal armor, but
the arrival of Morigar’s team could only mean one thing.  Turning promptly as
the four Krall Gen warrior’s approached, Keryak began shaking the still forms
of his sleeping companions, starting with Durik and Manebrow.

Slowly
the company began to come to life, rising from the ground like so many zombies,
their eyes dull and swollen from having slept through the heat of the day. 
Before long packdogs and riding wolves were woken as well.  As Morigar and his
team sat on their haunches, the members of Durik’s Company slowly ladened the
dogs, stowed blankets, donned armor, and prepared to march.  Many a surly
glance toward the Chop could be seen amongst the Kale Gen warriors.  Not one of
them was looking forward to the extreme exertion they knew it would take.  More
than one of them was wondering if making metal armor these last few days had
been a smart idea or not.

None
too quickly, and yet without dallying, the entire group of kobolds, both Kale
and Krall, were ready to march.  The sun had already set by the time Ardan and
Keryak, dressed in their lighter leather armor for scouting, moved out in front
to their customary position.  With Morigar’s team taking up its position in the
rear, as Morigar put it to ‘have a better view from which to command things,’
the mixed group of warriors moved out onto the road as one, heading directly
north toward the mountain which stood before them as a mighty wall.

The
bright points of light that danced about on the top of the dark mountain slope
were clearly kobolds to Ardan’s eyes.  He had always had very good sight, and
he was confident of his assessment.  Turning to Durik as they stood in the tree
line looking upwards, he told him so.

“Well
that, at least, is better than orcs,” Durik replied.  “Now the question is how
to take them.  They’ll be able to watch our progress the entire distance, and
by the time we get to the top, we’ll be exhausted.  They could just roll rocks
down on us from up there until they eventually hit.  Meanwhile we’ll not have
the opportunity to hit them at all until we get to the top.”

“Aye,
sire,” Manebrow said on Durik’s other side.  “Looks like we’ll have to trick
them.”

Durik
looked over at Manebrow, and Krebbekar who stood just beyond.  “Did you have
anything in mind?”

“Aye,
how about we act like a caravan?”

“A
caravan?  Do go on.”

“Well,
both of our gens send trade caravans over this chop to the northern gens,”
Manebrow explained.  “We should send a number of warriors up with the packdogs,
like a caravan, then once they take the bridge the rest of us come up.”

Gorgon
thumped his chest.  “I’ll take them up, carrying them if need be.”

Durik
nodded his head.  “Sounds reasonable enough.  I can’t think of anyone who would
be better suited to leading an assault up this steep mountain.”  Looking at the
other two leaders, he asked, “Any other ideas?”

Krebbekar
pointed with his snout up at the kobolds moving around far above them, his arms
remaining crossed.  “Word from our Border Guard is that the orcs have found
some sort of passage under the mountains.  I’d recommend we find that.  It
would likely be a lot easier going than up the Chop, and we’re going to the
underdark anyway.  It would likely be a lot shorter.”

Durik
pursed his lips in thought.  He agreed with much of what Krebbekar said, but he
doubted it would take less time.  Knowing what he knew about the situation in his
home gen, he didn’t want to risk the possibility of losing days wandering about
in the underdark looking for the Dwarven Mining Outpost when the most direct
route was supposed to be from the area of the bridge above.

“I
like your idea, Krebbekar, except that we could just as easily wander for days
or more before we eventually find what we’re looking for.  No, I think we’ll go
with the caravan idea.  Gorgon, the assault is yours.”

“My
two scouts share the danger as well,” Krebbekar added in.

“Very
well,” Durik nodded.  “Then it is decided.”

The
other three leaders nodded and the group turned almost as one to head back to
where the rest of the party was hidden in the particularly dense stand of fur
trees where they’d first caught a glimpse of the bridge guardians.

Having
only worn the metal armor for a day, Gorgon had already gotten rather used to
it.  The feeling of invulnerability it gave him was something he had
immediately loved.  Now, as he climbed the Chop without it, he felt rather
naked, especially as he saw the crowd of probably six or eight kobolds gathered
at the top of it.  He knew there was nothing to it but to do it, however, as a
group of armored warriors would have been seen as a threat.  As it was, his
team of four kobold warriors, plus the pair of scouts from Krebbekar’s team
would have to
be
enough of a threat, yet not
appear
so as they
led the four packdogs of Durik’s Company and the two packdogs from Krebbekar’s
team.  The massive beast that passed as a packdog that carried the bags of
coins for Morigar was left at the bottom; Morigar wouldn’t be parted with him.