II
Oleksandr the Cruel stood silently over the roughly lashed wooden table, studying the map before him. In the light of lanterns taken from Tourant settlements and handmade torches, the half orc chieftain continued to stare at the parchment unfolded on the table, a scowl spread across his roughly shaven face. A half dozen scar lines, tattooed with red and blue ink to highlight the reminders of vicious injuries or ritual carvings, stood out on his ash colored face, while his thick mane of black hair cast heavy shadows along his cheeks and forehead.
"Our scouts to the east have not found a single settlement along the border of the human kingdom," a stern, rumbling voice said from the opposite side of the table. Oleksandr looked up slowly, considering the orcs surrounding him in the dim light of his command tent. The speaker, Vlastimir, folded his arms across his mailed chest, his dark eyes showing his disappointment with the news. "The humans have suffered as much as we have. Possibly more."
"The winter has decimated the humans that lived to our west," a second orc put in. Dainis, easily the largest member of the group and Oleksandr's war chief, leaned forward over the map to point out the positions of human settlements further into the Khairathi Mountains, his heavy braid of black hair brushing the table as he did so. "They die of plague and starvation even as we speak. They offer us nothing to raid for."
"We have faced harsh winters before," Oleksandr pointed out, looking to his two pure blooded advisors. Standing behind them, Ruslan, Oleksandr's orcish half brother and bodyguard, remained silent and emotionless as he pondered the situation.
"None this bad," Vlastimir countered, the ritual scars above his thick eyebrows standing out as white, diagonal streaks against his greenish gray forehead. "Winter wolves have chased off deer and elk. The humans have no food, and the human kingdom has withdrawn its settlements. Already I have seen our own orcs suffering from hunger."
"We have marched north for almost a week now," Dainis added. "We have followed the Ondava for eight days, and we have found nothing. Soon, Oleksandr, we must find food."
"Ruslan," Oleksandr said, turning from Dainis without responding to the war chief's challenge. Oleksandr's half brother looked up, his dark eyes invisible beneath the shadows created by his wild shock of black hair and equally thick beard. "You have been to our north. What lies ahead?"
"The Bloody Fist," Ruslan answered simply, his voice flat. Vlastimir and Dainis glanced uneasily to one another for a moment, then turned to their leader.
"You mean to attack Libor?" Vlastimir concluded, surprise evident in his voice. "In Bijelo Polje?"
"You have said yourself, there is nothing else left to raid," Oleksandr explained. "The humans have no food, Tourant has sent no one west. Winter wolves have already attacked our targets, leaving us with nothing. Bijelo Polje is our last option."
"Libor will not be easy to defeat," Dainis pointed out. "He has as many troops as we do, and the advantage of defenses."
"But we are hungry," Oleksandr countered. "And they will not know we are coming."
"Predrag," Vlastimir said. Dainis nodded in agreement. The mere mention of Predrag was enough to give any orcish tribe pause, as the old priest was known to be the favored of the One Eye and one of the most dangerous clerics in the Khairathi Mountains. Gifted with the One Eye's vision, Predrag had often been able to warn Libor in the past of assaults against the Bloody Fist. A battle as grand as one to be fought between the Cruel Blade and the Bloody Fist would not be overlooked by the brutal god of the orcs.
"Then we must move quickly," Ruslan said, taking a step from the shadows and revealing the myriad of tattoos and scars covering his face. Vlastimir turned to Oleksandr's disfigured half brother, but the chieftain spoke again before the orc could open his mouth.
"Ruslan is right," Oleksandr said. "Keep our orcs moving, and they will not complain of hunger. Leave them here to starve on this river bank, and they will turn on us. Ready your orcs. Tomorrow we move with the dawn."
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"They're still heading north."
"Where are they going?" Neuville asked, watching the orcs of the Cruel Blade strike camp and continue along the banks of the Ondava. While the morning had brought fog and a damp, miserable drizzle, he could still see enough of the orcs to realize that they had no intentions of turning east to search for Tourant settlements. Standing next to him, Thierry leaned on his long bow as he watched the column begin its march.
"You said they might be going after Libor," the younger ranger commented, turning to his companion.
"That was wishful thinking," Neuville countered. He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head in confusion. "At least, I thought that's all it was. Usually they wait until summer to kill each other."
"Then we should count our blessings that we may not have to fight them this spring," Thierry said, turning back to their tiny camp to gather his belongings. Neuville continued to watch the orcish army with a puzzled expression, leaning on the long haft of the orcish double axe that he wielded. "Like I said, if they kill each other it saves us the trouble."
"We'll get ahead of them," Neuville said, standing and turning back to his partner. Thierry stopped in the middle of pulling his backpack over his shoulder.
"You were serious last night?" the younger ranger asked, dismayed.
"We'll see where they're heading," Neuville explained. "See if they are planning to attack the Bloody Fist."
"Neuville, we're outside of Tourant," Thierry pointed out, pulling his pack on and tightening his cloak to keep out the morning drizzle. "Even by the marquis' most optimistic maps, we're miles from the border. Whatever the orcs do out here isn't our business, as long as they don't turn back into Tourant."
"What if they're heading for a village somewhere along the river?" Neuville asked. "You just want to leave some town to get slaughtered by Oleksandr and his tribe?"
"We checked the map three times," Thierry reminded him. "There are no human settlements for miles in any direction. The nearest logging camp in Tourant is over sixteen miles east."
"My home wasn't on the map," Neuville said darkly, his blue eyes turning even colder. Thierry hesitated for a moment, all too aware of the fact that Neuville's family, and indeed his entire village, had been wiped out by orcish raiders years before. Even now, a decade or more later, the quiet, unhappy ranger pursued the orcs of the Khairathi Mountains with an almost religious zeal, and his magnificent, enchanted double axe had been taken in battle with an orcish barbarian leader that he had chased across twenty miles of rugged terrain.
"Okay," Thierry relented, not wanting to push his companion any further. "We'll get ahead of them. Shouldn't be too hard to do, anyway. Especially with the weather like it is."
"Then stop your chattering and let's get moving," Neuville said, picking up his own pack and double axe as he set out along the ridges. Thierry watched his partner disappear through the trees and fog for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.
"Always in a hurry to kill an orc," the younger ranger sighed, taking off after his companion.
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It was midday before Neuville finally came to a stop, pausing for breath under the bare limbs of an enormous, long dead spruce on an otherwise bare ridge. Thierry stopped a few paces behind his partner, watching as the older ranger gazed down over the raging torrent of the River Ondava as it tore its way through the mountains. With a steady, soaking rain falling from the heavy clouds overhead, Thierry was content to stay under the cover of the thick pine and spruce growing only a few dozen yards from the rocky plateau as his companion scanned the valley.
"Did we get ahead of them yet?" Thierry inquired, leaning against one of the trees to catch his own breath. While the younger ranger had originally thought it would be simple to overtake the orcs, the Cruel Blades were moving with an almost superhuman efficiency in their march north. Neuville said nothing for a long moment, his eyes fixed on the valley below.
"I don't see them below," the older ranger finally answered, peering down through the fog shrouding the bottom of the valley. "I don't hear them below."
"Then we're ahead of them," Thierry concluded. "And there's nothing here."
"Let's head down to the Ondava," Neuville said, turning away from the slope. Thierry's face wrinkled in confusion.
"Why?" the younger ranger asked. "At least we've got the high ground up here. If they trap us down there, we're dead."
"I want to see what they're looking for," Neuville answered. "Stop whining and let's go. Quietly."
"They're going upriver," Thierry said, unhappy with the prospect of battling his way down the steep grade through the drenching rain and waterlogged brush. Neuville scowled back at his reluctant ally, then started without another word down the rocky slope. With a last, dismayed look to the sky, Thierry started down after his partner, keeping his long bow and an arrow in his hands in case the orcs were waiting for them along the Ondava's banks.
The stunted pines and bare, skeletal ash that grew along the east slope of the valley was interspersed by heavy thickets of briar and laurel, giving the two rangers ample cover on their descent. Neuville, despite his burly frame and the broad, double headed axe that he carried, slid noiselessly through the undergrowth, his drab green cloak blending easily into the laurel and pine. Thierry stayed almost a dozen yards behind his companion, stealthily picking his own route through the dripping brush as he scanned the slope around him. Although he strained his ears to hear even the slightest noise, the only thing Thierry could hear was the incessant drumming of the rain on the leaves and ground, or the raging current of the river below them. Likewise, the younger ranger could not find any movement along the slope, other than flashes of movement ahead where Neuville stole through the brush.
Neuville finally came to a stop ahead of him, hovering on the edge of the forest where the pine and ash gave way to the rocky shores of the River Ondava. Thierry hesitated for a moment above his ally, nocking his arrow silently and drawing a slight tension on the string, taking cover behind a large chunk of granite that jutted up through the soil. For a long moment Neuville remained crouched among the briars and laurel, barely visible even to Thierry as he focused on something along the shore. Neuville's silent, focused stare put Thierry ill at ease, and the younger ranger slowly began to raise his bow in preparation to fire.
Within another second, the focus of Neuville's attention came into sight. A young girl, barely past her thirteenth winter and dressed in a thick, heavily padded tunic and a heavy cap that mostly covered her deep brown hair, came into sight along the bank. Despite her young age, the girl moved with careful steps along the rocky bank, holding a fairly made short bow in her hands and a short sword belted to her hip. Thierry almost stood up to reveal himself to the purely girl, but a stern warning glance from Neuville stopped him. With a faint tip of his long bow, Thierry shot a confused glance to his partner, but Neuville had already turned back to watch the young girl pick her way along the riverbank.
Neuville's true concern became all too apparent to Thierry a heartbeat later. A twig snapped off to his right, masked from the girl by the noisy river but all too apparent to both rangers. Thierry glanced quickly to his left, crouching down as far as possible, but for the moment nothing appeared to the ranger's sight. Stuck with his back to the noise, Neuville dared not make even the slightest move, his head craned around to watch for the new threat over his shoulder. A low grunt sounded below Thierry, close to the river bank. A glint of wet leather shone through a heavy clump of laurel.
The girl froze in midstep, one foot suspended just above the rocky ground as a stifled curse drifted out of a briar thicket. Her dark eyes, shining with fear, went immediately to the source of the noise. Thierry drew his bowstring taut. Neuville shifted slightly, bringing his double axe into a marginally more ready position. For a long moment even the sound of the rain seemed to die away as the three groups tensed for the imminent battle.
The girl acted first, turning and sprinting back upriver. Galvanized by the sudden move, four orcs burst from the forest, hurling javelins at the fleeing human. Three missed their mark, but the apparent leader of the raiders, an orc with one missing ear and a trio of tattooed scar lines running down the center of his face, caught the girl in her hip with his throw. The orcs raced forward with howls of delight as the girl tumbled to the ground, already drawing pitted swords from their scabbards or pulling axes from belt loops. Thierry raised his bow quickly, taking quick aim on the apparent leader's studded leather tunic as Neuville exploded into the middle of the orcs.
The orcs were only a handful of paces behind the girl when Neuville pounced. The ranger bolted out of the trees with a harsh roar, swinging through the lead orc with the front head of his double axe. As that one stumbled to the ground, Neuville twirled the weapon around in his hands, slamming the second blade down through the leather cap and skull of the second raider. The third orc turned to Neuville just as Thierry loosed his first arrows, both striking the raider in the chest before he could try to bury his axe in the older ranger's back. Neuville turned on the last orc, the likely commander of the small raiding party, spinning his double axe quickly as the tattooed raider drew a pair of large battle axes and snarled fearlessly. Frantic to get in another shot before the raider closed the distance, Thierry yanked another arrow from his quiver and took quick aim on the orc.
Whether or not he recognized the threat Thierry posed, the orc rushed forward with a vicious double swing, immediately putting Neuville between the archer and himself. Thierry cursed as Neuville refused to get out of the way, instead focusing on launching a brutal series of attacks with both heads of his double axe. The older ranger spun the weapon quickly, putting two quick slices in at the orc, but the raider stumbled back a step to the churning river as he tried to fend off his opponent. The orc managed to land on minor hit on Neuville's shoulder as he countered, but the injury only served to incense the human. Thierry bolted out of the trees, drawing his long and short swords to join in the battle, but Neuville dropped low with his double axe to tear through the orcish raider's chest with a brutal slash. As the orc tumbled to one knee Neuville brought the other head of the axe around, nearly severing the orc's arm as he fell to the ground with a scream of pain. The orc crawled back another step, practically dragging himself into the Ondava, but Neuville easily kept pace as he raised his weapon to deliver the killing stroke.
"Neuville! Stop!" Thierry shouted, rushing across the bank. "Don't do it!"
"He's an orc, Thierry!" Neuville shot back, his face a mask of rage. "He deserves nothing less!"
"If he's from the Cruel Blades, we need him!" Thierry countered, grabbing the haft of his partner's axe. Neuville turned to the younger ranger, eager to kill the orc but also realizing that Thierry had a point.
"See to the girl," Neuville directed, still holding his double axe over the orc's throat. "I'll find out what we need from him."
"Neuville, why don't you see to her," Thierry suggested. Neuville turned an icy, threatening glare on his younger partner. With a last glance to the wounded orc, the younger ranger turned and started to the girl, who was still struggling to drag herself away from the battle. As Thierry walked out of earshot, Neuville turned his icy eyes back to his prisoner.
"You're part of the Cruel Blade?" the ranger asked, his voice flat and emotionless as he switched to the Khairathi dialect.
"I am," the orc replied, his face twisted into a mask of pain and hate.
"Where are you going?" Neuville demanded. The orc remained silent. "Why are you marching north?"
"Die, human," the orc spat.
"Answer my questions, or I will kill you," Neuville threatened, lowering the axe slightly over the orc's throat.
"If you are smart, you will kill me anyway," the raider countered. "The One Eye curse your bitch of a mother!"
The orc had barely finished his epithet when Neuville's axe fell, cleanly severing the raider's head from his body.
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"Easy now, easy," Thierry said, using the Khairathi language as he carefully approached the wounded girl. Even with the javelin still embedded in her hip, she tried to draw herself up to one knee, holding her short sword shakily in front of her. "I'm a friend," Thierry tried, holding his hands out to his sides in a gesture of peace. "I only want to help you."
"You are not another raider?" the girl asked, trying to chase the pain and fear from her voice. Thierry smiled as he knelt in front of her.
"I'm not," the ranger confirmed. "I am a ranger from Tourant."
"Tourant?" the girl repeated, uncertain of the name's significance.
"To the east," Thierry explained. "We are a great kingdom. I can help you with your injuries, if you let me examine the wound."
The girl hesitated for a long moment, still warding the ranger off with her sword. Finally, she lowered her weapon and slumped back to the ground, her eyes welling up with tears of pain as she allowed Thierry closer. The archer examined the javelin sticking out of her hip for a moment, trying not to show his uncertainty at how to handle the injury.
"Neuville?" the younger ranger finally called out over his shoulder.
"What?" the older ranger replied, already standing next to him. Thierry glanced downstream slightly, seeing the orc's headless body lying on the edge of the water, then turned to his companion.
"You find out what we needed?" he inquired, letting an obvious note of disapproval slip into his voice.
"He was uncooperative," Neuville explained simply, kneeling next to his partner. The older ranger examined the wound for a moment, then gestured to the girl. "Hold her down."
"All right," Thierry said. He switched back to Khairathi as he gently moved around to the girl's head. "You have to hold still, dear," the ranger said, gently helping her to shift to her side more. "This is going to hurt, but you have to hold still."
The girl gave a slight, fearful nod, then squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in Thierry's studded leather jerkin. The younger ranger wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly, then gave a nod of his own to Neuville.
Her scream echoed through the valley, but Neuville already had the javelin removed before the girl could twist about in pain. The older ranger gave her a moment to calm down, then examined the wound as it began to bleed freely.
"You'll live," he said simply, pulling his pack from his shoulder and making some bandages from strips of cloth. The girl was sobbing openly now with agony, trying not to look down at the hole in her side. As Neuville went about covering the wound, Thierry pulled a small flask from his own pack, and helped the girl sip down some of the brandy it held.
"It'll be all right," Thierry said, gently pushing the girl's hair back from her face. With the bandages in place, Neuville sat back slightly, turning to look down river "You'll be okay now."
"Not if we stay here," Neuville suddenly said. Thierry looked up from the girl, and suddenly heard the faint, but unmistakable calls of orcish scouts. "We head back up the slope," Neuville directed. "Can you carry her, or should I?"
"You take her," Thierry said, pulling his long bow from his shoulder as he stood. "Get going. I'll hang low a little, and draw them off if they pick up our trail."
"I can do that," Neuville said. Thierry could already see cold glow that lit Neuville's eyes as the older ranger considered the opportunity to kill more orcs.
"You're stronger than me, so you can carry her," Thierry countered, not wanting to give his companion any reason to engage the orcs. "And I'm faster than you. So get going."
Neuville scowled for a moment, but finally relented and picked up the girl. As the older ranger started up the slope to the ridges above the river, Thierry melted back into the gloomy forest, hoping that the rain and the orcs' fundamental lack of patience in tracking would allow the three humans to slip away into the mountains.