Fortress Al-Mir

“And then they just left.”

Arkk looked around the room, staring at the morose faces. Well, one morose face.

Fortress Al-Mir had undergone some reorganization. The orcs had a whole village-sized section of the fortress to themselves. Heavy iron doors fabricated by the blacksmith wouldn’t let any of them cross over into a more secluded area for him, Ilya, and Vezta. He and Ilya even had private rooms, made using the same living area magic that allowed the orcs to create personalized homes for themselves.

His room was a fairly simple affair with wood flooring and wood panels on the walls. A large open room covered with a rich violet rug. He had a remarkably comfortable bed, a desk, and a shelf that held just a single black book at the moment. Stone shields hung from the ceiling like chandeliers, their maze-like pattern broken up by a compass rose with a bright gemstone in the middle.

Ilya’s room was a bit more extravagant. It looked like a slice of a castle, complete with a roaring stone fireplace, massive four-poster bed, and large windows that, despite being underground, still managed to look out over the Cursed Forest as if her room was set in a high tower.

Vezta had denied needing room.

This room, however, was a dedicated meeting room. It too had walls adorned with maze-engraved shields with compass roses and gemstones. That seemed to be the theme of this place. There was a large table and… that was it. Rekk’ar and Olatt’an sat on one side of the table. Ilya sat next to Arkk. Vezta stood to his other side. Of all of them, Ilya was the only one who looked concerned.

“Horror from beyond the stars?” she repeated, smile a little tighter than normal. Slowly, Ilya looked over to Vezta.

“First, that is highly insulting. Beyond the stars? Really?”

Ilya glanced over, losing her concern for a moment as she raised an eyebrow. “That’s the part you have a problem with?”

“I am from the [STARS]. Not from beyond the stars,” she said slowly as if explaining to a child. “Whatever does that mean? These humans know nothing about me.”

“It’s close enough that it gave me a start,” Arkk said. “The orcs we gave to the Duke must have described you. It probably wasn’t a very accurate description, but they still got that much right. That’s enough to be alarmed over; these inquisitors did not look that friendly.”

“They didn’t follow you, did they?” Ilya asked. “Did they see the teleportation circle?”

Arkk shook his head. “I watched from the Baron’s manor until their carriage disappeared over the horizon. The circle is hidden behind the carpentry workshop. They wouldn’t have seen it coming or going.”

“Master,” Vezta said, lips turning to a frown as she spoke. “It may be prudent to destroy the teleportation circles.”

“Destroy? But how will—”

“Not permanently, Master, but anyone capable of magic will be able to appear within our walls at will. With these hostile magic users in the area, the circles are a liability.”

Arkk put his elbows on the table, interlacing his fingers. He could already see Ilya ready to object if he agreed. Vezta was right, of course, but Langleey was their home. Arkk had little doubt that Ilya would abandon the fortress long before she abandoned the village.

Not that they were abandoning it if they destroyed the circles. It would just be less convenient to reach. To her, that was probably the same thing.

“We’ll move them,” Arkk said. “Out of the library and into a more secure room. Perhaps on the surface. Somewhere that someone would have to try to get down here. The passage up and down will be beyond the section of the fortress where the orcs live.”

Rekk’ar, despite caring nothing about the drama of humans showing up knowing something about Vezta, leaned forward and hit the table with his fist. “You plan to use us as guards?”

Arkk, though he flinched at the fist hitting the table, met Rekk’ar’s eyes without wavering. “I hired you all for something. That something is certainly not farm work, as you handily proved yesterday. You’re telling me you don’t want to fight either? I don’t believe it.”

Rekk’ar held Arkk’s gaze for a few seconds longer before letting out a laugh as he leaned back in his seat. “The human can be taught. Wonderful.”

Suppressing a roll of his eyes, Arkk just shook his head. “Speaking of fighting, I wanted to discuss the possibility of mercenary work for the orcs.”

“Mercenary work?”

“You know, hunt down some highwaymen who are causing trouble for travelers or—”

“I know what mercenary work is,” Rekk’ar growled. “I’m asking what jobs you have for us. I imagine some of the rowdier crew would love to get out and take some heads.”

“I don’t have any. We would need to visit a city that posts jobs.” Arkk glanced aside at Ilya.

Her eyes widened. “Now? In the middle of harvest?”

“Lousy as the orcs were at working the scythes, we did clear out the entire oat field. That is a massive load of work off the village. They’ll be fine without us for the remainder.” He paused a moment, taking a breath, but quickly started speaking before Ilya could say anything. “Not to do anything about your mother. At least not yet. We’re going for mercenary jobs, we’re going to get some spell books, we’re going to take a look that will help us come up with a better plan for Alya, and now… we need to go to figure out just what this Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox might be planning with us.”

Turning to his other side, Arkk looked over Vezta. The prim and proper servant looked perfectly prepared to agree to whatever he asked. “Can you handle things here for… a week? Two? I hope we wouldn’t be gone longer than that but I honestly don’t know how long it will take to reach Cliff.”

“I am unable to command the [HEART] as you do, I cannot construct rooms or mobilize your forces as you do, but I will defend the [HEART] to my dying breath.”

“I meant, can you keep things running here without the fortress falling to pieces?”

“Oh. That should be possible, yes.”

Nodding, Arkk looked at the two orcs. “I have no idea what your group is both capable of and willing to do. If one of you…”

Olatt’an slowly shook his head, making Arkk trail off. “Your power keeps most in line. With you gone, keeping order falls to us. After that stunt you pulled with the farming, if one of us—”

“Stunt? That was reparations.”

Rekk’ar scoffed. “Whatever you call it, it’s made us… unhappy. If one of us is gone, you’ll come back to a burned-out husk of a dungeon.”

Vezta narrowed her eyes. “I won’t allow it.”

“Then you’ll return to a bunch of dead orcs.” Rekk’ar shifted in his seat, clenching his teeth like he didn’t want to admit something. Even still, he opened his mouth. “I’m not strong enough to keep twenty angry orcs in line. Olatt’an carries some respect, but not enough. Aside from that… well…”

“There is a chance I won’t be popular in most human cities,” Olatt’an said, smiling a sad smile. “There is a chance those mercenary postings you wish to look at carry sketches of my face.”

“Alright,” Arkk said with a frown, shooting a glance at Ilya before looking back to Olatt’an. “Do I want to ask?”

“Doubtful.”

Arkk pressed his lips together but didn’t ask. Olatt’an was the most levelheaded of all the orcs. He knew he had something of a past to have earned the moniker of Ripthroat, but all the orcs had a past. Whatever he had been, he wasn’t anymore. And Arkk really couldn’t afford to lose him if it meant riots.

He would ask one day. But not today.

“Take Dakka,” Olatt’an said. “You might not have noticed, but she has been trying to draw your eyes more often lately.”

“Draw my eyes?”

“Besides,” Rekk’ar cut in with a hardy laugh. “She’s short. Less threatening to humans.”

With her massive axe and spiked shield, Arkk didn’t think she was much less threatening. “If we’re going based on that, Larry’s the best choice.”

He meant it as a joke—Arkk severely doubted that Larry would be able to talk about the groups’ capabilities or willingness to do certain jobs. However, neither of the other two laughed. They just glanced at each other. Arkk took a breath and closed his eyes.

“Is he on wanted posters too?” he said, taking a guess based on their expressions.

“He told you that he had a shack in some human village.”

“Pineberg Burg,” Arkk said, remembering.

“He didn’t tell you why he left.” Olatt’an pressed his lips together. “They found a little girl’s body chopped up in the woods behind his home.”

Ilya gasped. “He didn’t…”

“Says he didn’t,” Rekk’ar said. “And I believe him. I mean, look at the oaf. He’s got a gut, but doesn’t have the guts.” After laughing at his joke, Rekk’ar’s face turned serious once more. “When the executioners are on the hunt and you’re an orc in a human settlement, you don’t stick around.”

Arkk closed his eyes, nodding his head. That made an unfortunate amount of sense. He had wondered why Larry was part of their group since first spotting him. It was because he had no choice.

“But Dakka is fine? Not wanted in many cities?”

“Doubt it.”

“Fine. Ilya, Dakka, and I will leave in the morning. You work with Vezta to keep things running here. Destroy the teleportation circles.”

“You can’t use them to get to the city?” Olatt’an asked.

Arkk glanced at Vezta, who shrugged. “I was told that they have a limited range. And to make the existing ones, I had to show Vezta where to put them. I’ve… never actually been to Cliff. I don’t know the way there. I might find it by searching along the roads but…”

“Nor have I,” Ilya said, a slight tremble in her lip. She straightened her back, took a deep breath, and nodded at Arkk. “Let’s do this.”

In all his years, Arkk had never left Langleey Village. He had ventured out to the Cursed Forest, and a bit beyond, and Stone Hearth Burg sat just on the edge of the forest he and Ilya had been hunting in. Those were close enough that they didn’t count. He had never been outside the forested plains that Langleey Village was at the center of.

It wasn’t that travel was too far or the journey was overly dangerous. He just never had a reason to do so. There was work to be done around the village. The travelers who passed through might have filled his head with adventure and excitement but when the sun came up, it was time to head back to the fields.

Ilya had left the village twice as far as Arkk knew. Once just a few weeks ago when she had taken a small group of orcs to Smilesville Burg. Once as a young girl, before her mother had been taken. Arkk didn’t know where they had gone, but Ilya hadn’t bragged about it. So, she had never left it either. All Arkk knew was that it was something about her ancestral people.

Walking along the road out of town, Arkk glanced at their third companion. Even though she was the shortest orc in Fortress Al-Mir, she was still just a bit taller than Ilya. Her black hair was tightly woven against either side of her head but was loose on top, hanging down one side of her face to her chin. Dozens of metal rings adorned her ears and even more metal covered the majority of her body in the form of armor.

Arkk considered asking her about her travel history, but… after hearing about Olatt’an and Larry, Arkk wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

“Are the roads very dangerous these days?” he asked instead.

It took Dakka a moment to realize that Arkk was talking to her, not Ilya. She stiffened, glancing at him with her red eyes. She had dark paint under and around them, presumably to help against the glare of the sun. After taking a long moment to consider his question, she finally answered. “We never traveled the roads,” she said. “If that is what you’re asking.”

“I was wondering more about your armor. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us. It isn’t too late for me to send it back to the fortress if you don’t want to lug it around.”

Ilya had her black and white elvish bow and Arkk had a sword—though he planned to use magic over metal if at all possible—they had otherwise packed light. Well, mostly light. A significant fraction of the weight Arkk had in his pack was gold.

“If… you don’t mind, Sir, I would prefer if I kept my equipment.” She sounded stiff, afraid of offending him. “You said we would hire a wagon in the next burg.”

“That is true, but we won’t reach it today.” As much as Arkk would have liked to take horses from Langleey, they just couldn’t spare them at the moment. Not with the harvest going on.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve walked much more than a day with the horde.”

Arkk let the topic drop. Occasionally, as they walked on, he would try to draw Dakka into a conversation. The topics ranged from thoughts about what Cliff might be like with Ilya, musings about what Vezta might get up to in their absence, and even what kind of travel food was best. Dakka gave clipped responses, grunts that might have been agreements or disagreements, or just tried to avoid getting looped into the conversations altogether.

By the time night fell and they stopped for camp, Arkk was wondering if he had done something to upset Dakka. They didn’t speak often, but when they did, he hadn’t thought their interactions were quite so stiff.

Ilya took the first watch.

Partway through the night, Arkk found himself shaken awake. Nothing happened during Ilya’s watch. Her brief statement about whatever she had seen had been more of a yawn than a proper sentence but she kicked him off the small mat and immediately crawled onto it. Through the link between them, he could tell that she had fallen asleep almost the second her head hit the pillow.

At the same time, through the same link, he could tell that Dakka was not asleep. At least, she wasn’t anymore. The orc hadn’t brought any kind of mat and was just leaning up against a tree, shield over her body as if it were a particularly stiff blanket. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was steady, but Arkk could still tell that she was wide awake.

The fire was still going, he noted. It wasn’t a proper wood-burning fire, but the same magical ritual he had thought was a light spell back when he first found Fortress Al-Mir. He didn’t think it should have lasted this long, but…

Well, the [HEART] provided a massive advantage to spellcasters in that it refilled its contractor’s magic at an absurd rate, according to Vezta. The more minions and territory, the greater the capacity and throughput. So he wasn’t too surprised that the little flame was going.

Crouching down next to the flame, trying to warm himself up a bit, Arkk kept stealing glances at Dakka, wondering if she had slept at all. Was she worried about an attack? Ilya hadn’t been or she never would have just fallen asleep as she had, and elves could see at night and hear better than humans or orcs could.

Then what? Was it him? Ilya?

“Are you alright, Dakka?” he said, deciding to just ask. He didn’t look up from the fire as he spoke, still rubbing his hands together and holding them over it.

Dakka remained still for a long moment, but she eventually opened her eyes. “You knew I was awake?”

Arkk shrugged. “Guessed,” he lied. He hadn’t told anyone the full power the [HEART] gave him over those in his employ. Being able to teleport them around within his territory was alarming enough. They didn’t need to know more. “Did I do something to upset you?”

That got a reaction from her. Her eyes widened and she sat up straight. “No. Of course not.” She paused, then added, “Sir.”

“Why so formal and stiff? I don’t remember you being this way back in the fortress. You usually seemed… excited to see me, if anything.”

“We’re on a mission,” Dakka answered after a long moment.

“It isn’t that kind of mission. We’re just camping and traveling together as friends, not marching off to kill another demon summoner.”

“Friends?”

“Yeah. I mean… unless…”

Maybe that was the wrong word to use. He had kind of threatened Dakka, along with the rest of the orcs, into joining up with him. Ostensibly, he was her superior in whatever hierarchy the fortress had. Vezta had said that he was to be a leader, but he didn’t feel like the position was right for him. Rather, he felt like a babysitter, watching the village children while their parents went on a long hunt. Instead of rambunctious children, they were an army of orcs.

Dakka leaned back against the tree, slowly closing her eyes without saying anything else. Arkk figured the conversation had died a miserable death, but she slowly started speaking.

“Hearing movement around me while I sleep is generally a sign that something bad is about to happen.”

Arkk looked up, but her eyes were still closed.

“I would wake up to find the bottoms of my boots missing, my axe slammed against a rock to dull or chip its edge. Or, I might even be woken up by the others throwing stones at me.”

“The orcs did that?” Arkk asked, aghast. “Because you’re a little smaller than the others?”

“There is always a runt.”

“Not here,” Arkk said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, both Ilya and I are smaller than you.” Even if it wasn’t by much in Ilya’s case.

“Physically,” Dakka countered. “She’s your right hand. You’re… you.”

“Regardless, neither of us are going to attack you. I fully intend to get a few more hours of sleep, so you best be up for watch in a couple of hours. That means getting rest.”

Dakka’s eyes snapped open. She stared for a long moment, utterly still, before speaking slowly, one word at a time. “You… trust me with watch?”

“Of course? Should I not?”

“No! No, Sir! You can count on me.”

“Good. Then get some sleep.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And quit that. I’m just Arkk.”

Dakka stared, nodded, then closed her eyes again. She didn’t fall asleep immediately, of course, but Arkk felt her doze off before too long. Before waking her up for watch, Arkk spent a few minutes examining Fortress Al-Mir. Even away from it, he could still see everything going on inside its halls. He could even move its occupants around at will if he needed to. Not that he did, right now. Everything seemed calm and business as usual.

Come morning, Dakka was a bit less stiff and stand-offish, so Arkk counted their little conversation as a win. She even started a conversation or two on the walk. Nothing consequential, just small talk about fighting, mostly.

All conversation came to an abrupt halt as they spotted Smilesville Burg.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have come here,” Arkk said slowly.

Ilya looked sick. “Barbaric.”

The burg itself was a large city. Ten Langleey Villages could have fit within its walls. It had walls. Large stone defensive walls with periodic towers along them. Homes and other buildings dotted the land outside the walls, and the land itself was covered in fields far larger than Langleey had. People toiled around in the fields. It was harvest here as well.

But what really stopped the conversation were the wooden poles erected along the path to the city.

Rotted, fetid corpses of orcs hung from ropes on the poles, dangling in the light breeze as carrion feeders pecked at bits of dangling flesh.

Arkk kept his eyes locked on the sight but used his power over the [HEART] to check on Dakka. A strange double-vision hit Arkk, letting him see the orc as if he were facing her. She looked on, face mostly impassive. To her, this didn’t matter, it was just a thing that happened. Arkk wondered if the slight curl in her lip was a smile. Given what she had said last night, some or all of those might have been among her tormentors.

How many of the orcs in his employ had attacked her in her sleep?

Eventually, Dakka glanced over. “Why did we stop? You knew they were going to be executed when you brought them here, right?” she shrugged. “They deserved it.”

“I didn’t think they’d…” Ilya trailed off, shaking her head in disgust. “It’s been weeks! They should have buried them.”

“It’s a warning to other raiders,” Dakka said with another shrug. “Stay in line or go for a swing.”

“Ugh.”

“Stay close to us,” Arkk said. “Don’t want them getting any ideas about you. Let’s just see if they’ve got a cart we can buy, some provisions, and get out of here before anyone notices we’re here.”

“Like they’re going to miss me,” Dakka scoffed. Still, as they started walking again, she stepped closer to Arkk, sliding between him and Ilya.

In the end, Arkk had rushed their departure even more than he thought he needed to. The more they walked through town, the more it looked like a lynch mob might form. It was a shame. He had wanted to check around and see how one might take on mercenary jobs. Getting jobs at the closest burg, one still within range of Fortress Al-Mir, would have been convenient.

Still, even as hostile as the town was, they were more than willing to accept a few gold coins for what he needed. Supplies, a horse and cart, and directions.

With that, they were off toward the City of Cliff.