Finally the caravan was ready for the day's travel and resumed its stately pace. By the time three hours had passed, Jas'ka had already observed twice that Brizz seemed to have ants in his pants. The goblin was continually shifting around impatiently atop his elekk, occasionally bouncing comically and craning his neck in a futile attempt to see what at the front of the line was causing the steady, plodding pace. It was nothing, of course – only the customary disorganization of a merchant caravan traveling a narrow road through a thick forest.
As noon neared, the trees began to thin slightly to the south. Across the stretch of forest they could see patches of what looked like white sand, stark and gleaming in the sun. The bright sand was a curious and startling sight after days of muted green light and deep shadows. The trees seemed darker by comparison, the undergrowth denser and the terrain rockier. Wind swept in off the sand in fitful gusts, carrying grit and a dry, singed tang that made Galmak's skin prickle uneasily. Something in the back of his head whispered of shadow magic gone horribly awry. Even the sounds of wildlife were fewer here, as if most creatures preferred to live further in, away from the Bone Wastes.
Watchfulness gripped the caravan and mutterings of bandits circulated in hushed voices; raiders sometimes staged their operations along this stretch of road because of its proximity to the wastes. The caravan's few children now rode or walked sedately near their parents, eyes just as alert as the adults'. Weapons were loosened in their sheaths, guns and bows were brought to the ready in their owners' hands. Nearby, concealed by the undergrowth, Palla and Gink sniffed the acrid wind for any scent of danger. They'd had no sign so far of anything but wildlife near the path for the entire journey.
"Dere's ruins over dere, ya know," Jas'ka said wisely, nodding his head toward the wastes. "Heard about it. Big ole city o' da dead. Lots o' dead people from some explosion– "
"We know," Olkhor grated out. "Shut your yap and watch out for live people who want to make us dead."
Brizz shushed them both impatiently, which made Olkhor bristle at the implication that he might be as much an annoyance as Jas'ka. At the head of the line, the caravan leader had ordered a brisker pace as they passed the Bone Wastes and they all urged their mounts to a faster walk in compliance. A few elekk and pack mules protested and their owners did their best to silence them.
While Galmak scanned the thinned trees toward the desert, Hyara ran her eyes over the forest to their right. Although it was just after noon, the shadows were deep. Green light drifted like a veil and washed the distance in a murky glow that played tricks on the eyes. A few times she thought she saw something moving in a rough match to their pace; once the movement neared slightly, breaking into brighter light from a rare clearing in the trees, and revealed the fuzzy yellow body of a teromoth.
"It's hard to see through the glare," Galmak said in a low voice. The grey-white sand through the dark trees was proving a strain on everyone's eyes.
"Which is why bandits usually attack from that way, rather than hiding in the forest," Brizz clipped out, squinting furiously in the same direction as the orc.
"The forest isn't much– " Hyara began, but she stopped abruptly and her hand shot out to squeeze Galmak's arm. "There," she breathed, pointing slowly and casually through the trees.
She'd seen movement again, and this time she'd been certain it wasn't a teromoth. Well into the trees, a huge fallen trunk lay almost perpendicular to the path. Splintered roots jutted upward to twice her own height and cast deep grey shadows on the surrounding forest floor. She was sure she'd seen something creep from behind those roots, only to melt away once her eyes traveled in that direction.
Galmak stared in the direction she pointed and let his senses roam outward. There was something… maybe. He glanced at Hyara, feeling her slight confusion as well. His eyes slid back to the fallen trunk and were met abruptly by another set of eyes, gold and peering out from the greenish darkness. A glimpse of tawny fur and then the creature was gone even from the hunters' seeking senses.
"A wolf?" Hyara whispered uncertainly.
Galmak frowned and cocked his head, still searching. There really was nothing there now, the animal completely faded out of reach into the distance.
"Maybe," he replied and glanced around reflexively. Palla, and presumably Gink, was still well on the other side of the path toward the wastes. The hunters' brief observation had gone unnoticed by Brizz, who was still concentrating his gaze toward the sand, but Olkhor and Jas'ka behind them were staring toward where Hyara had pointed.
"Couldn'ta been nothin', " Jas'ka said bracingly.
"It was an animal of some sort," Galmak said. "Maybe a wolf. We saw several on our way to Stonebreaker Hold and they're supposed to be pretty common in the forest."
"Strange color for a wolf," Olkhor grunted quietly. Galmak and Hyara privately agreed, but there was no further sign of whatever it had been and it seemed to have moved on by now regardless.
A palpable ease in tension rippled through the caravan when at last after several hours' travel the glimpses of sand between the trees became less frequent. The Bone Wastes were fading behind as the trail diverged and dived further back into the forest. They'd continue following the contour of the wastes for some time still, but danger from that direction decreased with the distance. The waste's raiders, Brizz explained, were better equipped for fighting in more open areas and a touch superstitious, and didn't like to come far into the forest. With luck, the caravan need only worry now about the usual dangers that lurked between the trees.
When darkness descended in the late afternoon and there was still no sign of the village, Hyara began to wonder just how slowly they'd been traveling. The forest was clearly much larger than she'd known. Brizz, however, seemed unworried for the first time that day – maybe he'd been anticipating troublesome delays near the wastes and had relaxed when nothing had materialized.
Nudging her horse closer to Galmak, she wrapped a blanket tighter and strained her eyes to see up ahead. Only the caravan's lanterns, bobbing along like luminescent fish in the dark stream of the forest trail, were visible as signs of civilization.
"Can you see anything?" she asked her husband in a hushed voice.
Galmak too was peering up the line, his eyes focused on some dark point well ahead of the party. "I think so. A very faint light; it might be a bonfire at this distance."
After another ten minutes' travel, those without orcish eyes could see what the forest had conspired to hide from them until they were almost upon it.
"Ogres," Hyara breathed in shock. There were a dozen of them visible, their huge bodies throwing ink-black shadows in the red light of a bonfire in the courtyard of a small village. Although the village was small, the clay buildings weren't, scattered in loose clusters across the clearing and built to more than twice the scale of the orcish dwellings they resembled.
And there were Brizz's talbuk, sleeping peacefully or milling around a small enclosure just west of the village. It looked like a herd of only about twenty-five head.
Brizz slid from his elekk's back and scurried to meet a gigantic ogre who had detached from the group in the courtyard and was approaching the caravan. The ogre's heads had had three eyes between them at one time, but now he was left with only one good eye and two very sour smiles, which he directed at the goblin.
"You come not so soon as you say," the ogre announced in a voice that seemed to make the trees rumble in sympathy. "We thinking you not coming after all."
"There was rain," Brizz said dismissively, nodding his head as he silently counted the nearby herd.
"There always rain," the ogre laughed, as if the goblin had made a joke. "We stay the night now and delay for Nagrand. Consortium not be happy."
"Consortium'll be plenty happy after their profits roll in from this. Here." The goblin waved a fist that only reached to the ogre's knee. The ogre extended a hand and caught the solid clunk of gold in his ham-sized fist, then brought it up close to his nose to examine his take.
"All here?" he asked, counting laboriously.
"All there," Brizz nodded. "Along with your pay for herding them. We'll stay tonight. Don't think this lot would move even if we were inclined." He flicked a thumb toward the caravan, which the ogre studied for a moment with his one beady eye.
"Da ogres friendlier here dan in Blade's Edge?" Jas'ka asked in a suspicious whisper.
"Some are, I guess," Galmak whispered back, swiveling around for a look at his clansman. Rather than the ferocious frown Galmak had feared, Olkhor's face wore a blank mask. Only his reddish eyes betrayed any emotion, darting around coldly to take in the details of the village before them. Galmak decided he would rather have seen outright anger.
"I guess we have no choice but to stay here," the younger orc continued, "since it looks like everyone else is." The rest of the caravan was already breaking apart into its customary tiny camps, although it looked as if people were lingering a little closer together tonight. Olkhor was perhaps not the only one disturbed to be camping at an ogre village.
Olkhor's silence persisted as they set up their own camp and lit a fire. Galmak watched him closely, spreading the last blanket over a tiny sleeping tent, and then nudged the old warrior to pull him a bit beyond the ring of their firelight, away from the others.
"You alright?" Galmak asked awkwardly, even as he realized any question he asked would probably only worsen Olkhor's mood.
As expected, Olkhor glared. "Fine. Just great, setting up to sleep close to these beefy animals."
"We haven't got much choice," Galmak pointed out. "We came with this caravan so we'd be safer. Would you rather move off on our own and have the ogres know where we went? Besides, Brizz trusts them enough to do business with them."
"Goblins'll do business with anyone, which you know damn well." Even in the low firelight Galmak could tell the old orc's face had darkened with anger. A subsonic growl built in the back of Olkhor's throat. "These beasts aren't above taking female prisoners, did you know that? Willing to take that risk, huh?"
Galmak scowled and now his own throat rumbled with a growl. "I don't take stupid risks. We came on this whole trip with the intention of staying safe and minding our own business, and staying safe doesn't include wandering off on our own right now in the dead of night through unfamiliar forest."
"But staying safe does include trusting a lot of damned, puny-brained ogres not to do what they do best, which is kill people!" the old orc huffed.
"Look at this place, Olkhor. It's a village, not a raiding band. They raise talbuk here. I can smell turned earth, so they must have gardens somewhere nearby. There are probably women and children around. These ogres won't be dangerous unless they think we are. Can't you get over your damn suspicions for a night?"
"I've seen what these things can do. They murdered what was left of your clan. Did you forget that, whelp?"
"Am I supposed to believe it's been revenge driving you all these years? I think you're just too damned set in your ways to believe that things are different here. We don't have anything to worry about from these ogres and that's final, as far as I'm concerned. Go off on your own if you want."
The two orcs were standing close to each other, leaning forward menacingly with eyes locked. After a moment Olkhor's growl broke into a snarl and he whirled away.
"Alright," he spat. "Have it your way. On your head if these animals decide to murder us in our sleep."
Galmak glared at the old orc's turned back, more angry that he had to clash with one of his few remaining clansmen than at Olkhor's stubbornness. Jas'ka, who Galmak now saw had been watching the two orcs closely, sidled over and gave the hunter a significant look.
"He gon' be trouble, mon?" the troll asked quietly.
Galmak shrugged, feeling loyalty to Olkhor over a mere acquaintance despite their heated exchange. "He's got some problems with being here, but I think we'll make it through one night."
Olkhor didn't leave as Galmak had suggested, instead settling down sullenly at the campfire to pick at his dinner. Galmak was glad he hadn't left, of course, and admitted to himself that he would have gone after him to talk him into staying. Recognizing the old warrior's foul mood, Hyara struck up a conversation about the one subject that seemed invariably to cheer him: the twins. In this case it was a miscalculation, however. The reminder of the two additional tiny people who might be in danger here only soured his mood further. Hyara eventually trailed to a halt with an inward sigh after Olkhor had sent his third significant glare between Galmak and the nearby ogre village.
The awkward silence lasted a few minutes before Jas'ka suddenly spoke up. "Ogres not be so bad anyway, mon. Least dey only chop yah up an' spill yah blood. A quick death, an' den da earth can reclaim yah properly. Dere be worse things can happen." Galmak shot the troll a warning look – more discussion of ogres was not what Olkhor needed to hear right now – but Jas'ka was staring absently toward the darkness of the trees and didn't notice.
"Used ta have a friend…" The troll's sharp eyes focused abruptly on the group in front of him and darted around the circle of faces. His voice dropped low and he looked furtively toward the nearest campfire to theirs, well out of hearing range. Olkhor growled and rolled his eyes in disgust. "A friend," Jas'ka repeated, nodding, "dead now… if he be lucky. Ran afoul o' an ole witch doctor in da mountains. Ya see, mah friend liked his drink a little too much. He bought all he could, but when he didn' have da silver, he begged it or stole it. Everybody knew him around da village an' nobody paid 'im much mind except when 'ee been at da stealin' again.
"One day 'ee heard about a still up in da mountains, belongin' to an ole witch doctor, an' he thought, what could be easier dan stealin' from it up dere where dere nobody ta see? Ah tol' him not ta go. Ah heard things about dat ole voodoo man, yah see, things everybody in da village knew. We all knew ta stay away. Mah friend knew it too, but dat thirst he had was powerful. 'Ee left in da night wit'out tellin' nobody. Ah followed him when Ah found he'd left an' Ah got dere just at sunrise ta see dat filthy little hut nestled in among da black trees dat wouldn' let da light in… An' yah know what Ah saw when Ah got dere, pokin' mah eyes from behind a tree? Dere was somethin' red and slimy on da ground in front o' da hut, staked to da ground with a twisty carved tree branch. Da thing was about da size o' mah fist an' it was movin'. Dat thing was beatin' just like a heart. An' den Ah heard screams comin' from inside da hut, an' anothah voice talkin' low like chantin'. Ah never saw mah friend again."
"Well, that's just fine," Olkhor said with a wrinkle of his nose and a powerful sneer. "Left your friend to die, didn't you. Glad you don't call me a friend. Unlike you, I look out for the people around me, even the ones too dumb to know when they need looking out for."
"Bed," Galmak announced grumpily as he got to his feet, ignoring the sneer that was now directed at him. Getting some sleep was his intention, anyway; Hyara could follow if she chose. He for one had no desire to sit any longer around the fire staring at Olkhor's sour face.
Galmak lay sleepless, staring up at the coarse blue threads of their blanket roof only inches above. Hyara's warmth filled the tiny space beside him, her breathing soft and regular in the darkness, and he thought she must be asleep already. They were nearly out of the forest after tonight, thank the gods. His instinct told him, having studied maps, that they couldn't be far from the border with Nagrand. Back in warm autumn sun, open land, grass and only sparse trees. Maybe moods would improve; maybe Olkhor would be less his old self. Galmak scowled in the darkness, remembering how the day had ended.
"He feels powerless, love," Hyara whispered through a yawn beside him, and he realized how far into his own dark mood he'd been not to notice that her feel held no sense of sleep. "He has no control over the decisions you make, or I make, or that I allow you to make for me and the twins. He's found his clan again and he doesn't want to lose you… us."
Galmak only replied with a soft kiss to her lips and soon he felt her drift away into sleep. It surprised him how much it bothered him to argue with Olkhor now, after he'd felt they'd reached an understanding that went past all their initial clashes. At least we argue over the right things now, he admitted to himself. Olkhor got angry and surly now because he actually cared about something besides wallowing in his own misery and bitterness.
Hours later a light whisper, rather than Palla's careful touch to his mind, jarred him from sleep.
"Psst, mon." Jas'ka's voice carried to him from outside the tiny tent. Hyara stirred but Galmak soothed her with a kiss and a careful tuck of the blanket against the cold as he slid outside, and he felt her mind drift back into sleep.
The troll stood beside the embers of the fire, lanky body wired with uneasiness. "Mon," he said again, and hesitated, glancing apprehensively toward the rest of the sleeping caravan and the ogre village beyond.
"What," Galmak whispered, attempting to frown and yawn at the same time.
"Dunno where O'khor wen'," he blurted quietly. "Saw 'im sneakin' off. Couldn' get 'im ta tell me what he was doin', couldn' stop 'im."
Galmak swore under his breath and stared toward the ogre village, cloaked in a veil of greenish light that troubled even an orc's night vision. "How long ago?"
"Ten minutes, mebbe." The troll noted his gaze and hastened to add, "Don' think he was goin' to da village… didn' go dat direction. He went ovah dat way. Took his axe." He gestured toward the trees standing behind the caravan's camp to the south, banded in black shadows and obscuring pools of sickly green glow.
"Why the fuck didn't you wake me sooner," Galmak growled low, reaching down to slide out his bow resting just inside the little tent. He grabbed up an axe as well, glanced briefly inside to assure himself that Hyara still slept soundly, and jogged off into the woods without another look at the troll.
From what he could see and hear, all was silent in the ogre village. That at least was encouraging; it meant that Olkhor hadn't yet done something monumentally stupid.
A questioning sense entered his mind from somewhere to the north on the other side of the camp, and he answered Palla, I'm going to look for Olkhor. He's disappeared and I'm worried what he'll do around these ogres. She was beyond the bounds of thought-speech, but she would catch most of his meaning anyway. A moment later he felt his wolf beginning to move slowly in his direction.
The forest stood black and green around him. He moved carefully in near silence, pushing through the undergrowth and examining what ground and foliage he could for signs of the warrior's presence not long ago. Olkhor would have left traces; subtlety was not one of his strong suits. The forest's night sounds surrounded the hunter, oblivious to or uncaring of the interloper. The cold breeze blew desultorily, rustling the black and silver-green lattice of leaves above his head. All seemed quiet, yet Galmak's instincts told him trouble was near. Hopefully he could find Olkhor before it was too late.
After traveling for ten minutes, however, the hunter could see nothing to indicate the recent passage of another orc. The brush here seemed undisturbed by anything but small animals. There were a few less recent signs that ogres occasionally came this way. It had been twenty minutes now by Jas'ka's reckoning and Olkhor might have gotten a decent way into the forest, but Galmak was certain the old orc would have left evidence.
It's dark, he admitted to himself. But more likely Jas'ka was wrong about the direction.
Galmak was on the verge of turning around to begin his search anew, when a broken branch caught his eye. Something heavy, possibly an orcish boot, had snapped it very recently and crushed a leaf into the bark. Shifting his body around to block as much of the green light as possible – his eyes were far more effective if left to do their work in darkness, rather than deceptive, oddly-colored half-light – he stooped to examine his find.
The swish of fur against grass was all the warning he had. Galmak's head shot up, just at the same moment catching a new scent as the wind shifted, and his eyes locked for an instant on another pair of eyes, gold in the darkness. A flurry of tawny fur, and then something slammed into his chest, knocking him backward to send him crunching into the prickly outstretched arms of a dead bush. He rolled away with a grunt, grabbing for his bow, an arrow, his axe… The axe lay ten feet away where a huge paw had swiped it in one vicious blow, well out of reach. His side was already beginning to ache where claws had gouged him; his belt hung in tatters and there were deep scores in the leather of his pants at the thigh.
The animal had faded away. Galmak heaved himself up, panting and with arrow nocked, and stared around at the seemingly deserted forest. Carefully, he sidestepped over to the axe and slowly knelt to grab it.
It was bait the creature took. There was a rustle behind him, but this time Galmak was prepared. He spun around, the bow flashed up, and the arrow flew to land with a wet thud in the thing's shoulder.
It was a huge cat, Galmak could see now, and it looked oddly familiar, but that was a thought his brain shoved immediately aside as the arrow failed to stop the beast. With the rest of his arrows lying scattered out of reach, the axe still on the ground where he'd left it, and his bow hanging useless in his hands, Galmak's mind grasped eagerly for the one powerful weapon left to him.
Shadow flooded into his being, bringing him relief and pleasure that would have horrified him at any other time. It came swift as lightning and strong as a downpour, erupting from his hands at the cat in a burst of crackling darkness that seemed to suck the green light out of the forest around him. With a surprised snarl and a snap of its jaws, the cat flew through the air in a reverse of its pounce to smash stunned and motionless against a tree trunk.
Breathing hard with the dark, heady power slowly draining away and the red blaze fading from his eyes, Galmak gathered his dropped weapons and approached the stunned animal cautiously. As he neared, the creature opened one gold eye and hissed at the raised bow in the orc's hands. Blood trickled from the shoulder wound where the arrow had pierced it; the tawny fur was blackened around the throat from the shadow magic.
"You're what we saw on the road those few times," Galmak spoke quietly as he eyed the creature warily. "Not a wolf at all…"
The light shifted then; the tawny fur stretched strangely and the air shimmered and wavered. Galmak jumped back a step in alarm and tautened the bowstring further. Where the injured cat had lain against the tree, a tauren now slumped, staring up at the orc with a weary, brown-eyed glare.
"Don't shoot," the druid rasped. "You win, orc."
Recognition hit Galmak like a blow to the chest. "Lahgga," he gasped.
The tauren heaved a breath of air into his singed throat and started to reply, but Galmak never heard it. Something cut into his back like an icy blade, spreading paralysis and pain. It brought fear and a sense of hatred, a feeling of entrapment and bitterness. Something that felt like cold hands gripped him as he slid stiffly to the ground. As his eyes turned upward to the canopy and his back lowered to rest on the forest floor, the greenish glow of the trees around him was drowned in a wavering blue haze. It was a face hovering above him, but the lines were blurred as a painting washed in a rainstorm. Palla… he called out desperately to his wolf speeding toward him, but she was still too far.
As unconsciousness closed in, Galmak wondered what strange beings had come to Lahgga's aid.
*******
Olkhor rounded a clay building cautiously. It was the last one he'd check. The ogre village was silent around him, excepting only the ordinary sounds of a village at night. The talbuk grunted in their pen, the wind sighed softly and leaves rustled. He heard the occasional deep, earthquake-like snore from a sleeping ogre inside a house. But without a doubt, he'd heard no sobbing. No cries, no screams, no sounds of violence.
He growled softly to himself in black annoyance, carefully skirting an ogre watchman at the outer edge of the village – stupid creature, didn't even turn to watch behind him – and decided once and for all that that idiot troll must have been mistaken. There was no orcish female prisoner here. He'd seen ogre women and ogre children. It was just as Galmak had said – only a quiet village sleeping the night away and trusting their dumb brute guards to keep them safe from a suspicious caravan full of greedy merchants.