The Game of Fates (37 page)

Keryak
had had enough presence of mind to call for their healer.  Soon Myaliae came
shuffling into the room and within moments she was administering the elixirs
that were the hallmarks and tools of her trade.  Smoke wisped from wounds,
accompanied by the cries of those she administered to.  The thick red liquid
that brought almost instantaneous healing was then administered, accompanied by
words of power.  In this way it was not long before the grievous wounds given
them by the orcs were healed.

While
Myaliae was administering to the wounded, assisted by Keryak and Ardan,
Manebrow and Arbelk had been tying the hands and feet of the kobold mercenaries
who lay passed out from the drink.  As Myaliae finished with the last of the
warriors, Durik walked over to where Krebbekar sat.  Morigar was just beginning
to stir, and Krebbekar was helping him sit up.

“What
happened?” Durik whispered.

“Fell
and cracked his head on the table,” Krebbekar replied.

Morigar
had heard them and quickly retorted.  “It was that orc, not the table.  He
backhanded me.”  The effort of his emphatic response caused him to double over,
holding his head in his hands to fight off a splitting headache.

Durik
smirked.  Krebbekar smiled apologetically.  Durik stood and caught Manebrow’s
eye.  Seeing he was wanted, Manebrow came to his leader’s side.

“What
shall we do with the orc’s females and whelps?” Durik asked his second.

Manebrow’s
signature furry eyebrows raised in surprise.  “I’d quite forgotten about them,”
he admitted.  “I’d imagine they must have some idea of what’s going on by now. 
We certainly made enough noise.”

“We
haven’t seen any sign of them, though,” Durik countered.

Manebrow
shook his head.  “They’re skulking down these halls somewhere, I’d imagine.  We
should round them up and make sure they don’t try to strip this place clean,
then leave by some backdoor.”

“The
slaves as well,” Durik said.  “We should gather them all into this chamber
where we can figure out what to do with them.”

Manebrow
nodded.  “Right.  I’ll ask Krebbekar to prepare the chamber, and I’ll spread
our teams out to collect up them up.”

Durik
nodded, looking down at his feet.  “We can’t stay here long,” he said in a low
voice.

“Why
not?  What has the stone shone you?” Manebrow asked.

“It’s
not what the stone has shone me, but rather what it confirmed.”

Manebrow
looked at him quizzically.  “What this?”

Durik
had been keeping this pain to himself for some time, but now that they had the
stone, it was the right time to break the news to his second.  “Remember when
Lady Karaba pulled me aside, just as we were preparing to leave the Krall Gen
yesterday?”

Manebrow
pursed his lips.  His reply was completely deadpan.  “This is going to be
another ‘surprise’ isn’t it?”
Durik nodded his head.

“And
by the look of it, not a good one.”

Durik
nodded his head again.

“Well,
out with it then, sire.  Bad news doesn’t get better with time.”

“Khee-lar
Shadow Hand has overthrown our gen,” Durik whispered.

Manebrow
was completely stunned.  “What… how… but…”

Durik
pressed forward.  “Using the stone, I saw your family.  Ki and your three sons
are fine.  They look… stressed, but they’re alright.”

Manebrow’s
worries eased ever so slightly.  “But what about the rest of our families,
parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts?  What’s going on in our gen?”

Durik
held his hand up to calm Manebrow’s rising voice.  “I don’t have all the
answers right now, but I do know that there has been a lot of chaos back in our
gen and many have died.  Many others have been thrown in prison, including
Khazak Mail Fist.  Lord Karthan and many of our most loyal fellow warriors are
holed up with him in a wooden palisade just north of our gen’s home caves.”

Manebrow
staggered back as if from a physical blow.  Durik grabbed his shoulder.  “I
chose to not share this with you… and the company, until we had gotten the
stone.  I hope you understand, the Kale Stone is our best hope to end the
bloodshed among our brothers.”

Manebrow
nodded his head, gathering his wits.  “We’d have been terribly distracted, and
that wouldn’t have been good for anyone… except our enemies.  Sire,” he
continued, “let me continue with the plan for a while, will you?  I’d like to
have the prisoners and slaves dealt with before we tell the company.  They’ll
want to head out immediately, and we can’t just leave this chaos in our wake. 
It would come back to bite us if we did.”

Durik
gave his consent and, gathering the Kale Gen warriors into their teams,
Manebrow led the company out of the great hall in the direction of the most orc
stench, leaving Durik behind to search in the stone for answers to the flood of
questions that would soon come from his warriors.

Manebrow
was never one to even consider killing females and young, but he had never had
to face female orcs or their whelps before.  He’d faced several of their
warriors and knew their ferocity, but he hadn’t known the fury of their females
before this day.

Standing
among the bodies of the majority of the orc females and their whelps, he
couldn’t help but wonder at the senselessness of it all.  From the moment he’d
entered the wing of the outpost that served as the living quarters for the orcs
they’d come at his company with a relentless fury, wielding knives, axes,
stones, or with bare hands.  It was as if the kobolds’ appearance had sparked
some inner arrogance, and even their pig-faced whelps had joined in the attempt
to destroy the much shorter kobold warriors.

All
of the kobolds had several bruises, and some of them even had gashes from the
orcs’ rusty knives, but in the end the furious assault had been broken and the
last few had run in the face of the kobolds’ superior discipline and marshal
training.  Even now three adult females and six smaller whelps cowered in a
corner of this common chamber, rounded up by Manebrow’s warriors after they
broke and ran.

“No
wonder their warriors are so brutal.  A culture that makes mothers like these…”
he shook his head.  “Life must be miserable from day one.”

Keryak
stood leaning on his metal spear, flexing fingers that had suffered a rather
nasty bite.  “Not what I’d describe as cute and cuddly, that’s for sure,” he
replied.

“Ardan!”
Manebrow called across the chamber as he saw the first group of domestic slaves
begin to appear from the living quarters, the huddled group of kobolds looking
around tentatively at what they hoped were their saviors.  “Ardan, your team
will bind the orc prisoners and take them and the slaves to the feasting hall. 
I’ll take Gorgon and his team through the rest of the outpost and collect up
any stragglers.”

Turning
his attention to the kobold slaves, he motioned for them to come forward.  By
the dark hue of their scales they were almost all of northern gen descent,
though a couple of the males had more sharply pointed ears, shorter snouts,
lighter scales, and thicker tails than the others, showing a heritage that
Manebrow wasn’t familiar with.  He doubted any of them spoke proper Sorcerer’s
Tongue.

“Do
any of you speak The Sorcerer’s Tongue?” he asked.  From the middle of the
group both of the strange looking kobolds raised their hands.

“I
d… I mean we do,” he said, his accent smooth and exotic, with an almost lilting
tone to it.

“Where
are
you
from?” Manebrow asked, a frown creasing his features.  The other
Kale Gen warriors were all equally interested in the exotic sounding kobold.

“My
brother and I, we are from far over the mountains to the east and south of
here.  We were captured by the Bloodhand Orc Tribe while traveling north of
here.”

The
smooth tone of their voices, and the subtle differences in pronunciation of
their words were intriguing.  Manebrow decided he’d have to find out much more
about these kobolds when time permitted.  For now, however, he needed to clean
out the rest of the outpost.

“Right,
then.  Can you speak with these others from the northern gen?” Manebrow asked.

“Yes,”
the exotic kobold answered simply.

“Then
please tell them that they need to follow my warriors.  We will be collecting
up all the slaves, orcs, and mercenaries and bringing them to the feast hall.”

“My
lord, what are we to tell them of their… of our fate?”

Manebrow
didn’t skip a beat.  “Tell them that they are all free… but there is an orc
horde out there that we need to make sure doesn’t get wind of what happened
here, so we’re going to have to ask them to stay here in the outpost until that
danger passes.”

A
few of the northern gen kobolds who spoke a bit more Sorcerer’s Tongue than the
rest began to get excited.  Soon all of them were excited as the exotic kobold
translated for them.  Their excitement brought several more slaves out of
hiding from the living quarters.  Several questions came forward from the
growing group of former slaves.

“They
want to know if you will kill the rest of the orcs.”

Manebrow
could see the excitement of the former slaves, and now he could see that it was
beginning to turn to bloodlust for their former masters.

“No. 
They have surrendered.  They will eventually be freed, once the horde has gone
its way.  Until then, they are not to be harmed.”  Manebrow could see that the
answer wasn’t pleasing to the former slaves, and several of them looked like
they wanted to take matters into their own hands.

“Tell
them that my warriors will kill anyone who decides to disobey this order,”
Manebrow added.  If honor wouldn’t motivate them, perhaps fear would.

Durik
stood surveying the scene.  In one corner of the great hall the last few orcs,
females and whelps all, sat huddled in desperation.  Though Durik didn’t
understand it, the orcs hadn’t believed them when he’d had Manatos, the exotic
kobold from the east, explain to them that they weren’t going to kill them. 
Even now Manatos was trying to calm them down while his brother, Manarius,
translated Manebrow’s assurances to the crowd of slaves from the northern gens
that occupied the entire middle portion of the hall.

In
the far corner of the hall, opposite the orcs, Arbelk and Troka stood guarding
the remaining mercenaries who lay strewn around the garbage and rubble in the
corner, stacked on top of each other like so many fish, groaning and vomiting
all over each other in turn.  The scent of their spewed-up revelry did nothing
to calm or quiet the orcs or former slaves in the room.

Finishing
up a silent count in his head, Durik thought he had fifty individuals, more or
less, between the freed slaves, the mercenaries, and the orcs.  As if to
accentuate the mess, and add further to the confusion, Tohr and Kahn arrived
with Mahtu, the mercenary leader, and his five remaining mercenaries that the
company had captured at Demon’s Bridge.  With no great effort, the six dejected
mercenaries were pushed unceremoniously onto the pile of semi-conscious
revelers who were their companions, causing more groaning and vomiting.

“Sire,”
Gorgon asked Durik, breaking him out of his thoughts, “How are we going to
ensure that all of these don’t escape and warn the approaching horde?  Surely
we can’t leave any of our warriors here?”

Seated
on the steps of the dais, Morigar and the rest of the Krall Gen team sat
waiting.

Durik
breathed deeply, despite the stench, “I believe it’s time to tell everyone
what’s going on back in our home gen.”  He turned to Morigar and Krebbekar.  “I
have some very troubling news for the members of my gen.  Will you have your
team watch over the prisoners while I take my company into the other room to
tell them?”

Morigar
stood up with an unusual amount of interest.  “What’s happened at your gen?”