I could tell my pet was in a mischievous mood. Fundamentally, he was still quite a young member of his species and craved entertainment. In other words, I shouldn’t expect him back for the next few hours. He won’t turn back until he’s done playing.
Mee and I ate dinner with a cheery air. We spent a long time recalling the frightened faces of the ill-fated marauders. We laughed as we recounted the story, imitating the way they ran and things they shouted. I think this is exactly what we’ve been missing for the last few weeks. Hearty and unconcealed laughter.
Already dozing off, I was thinking about the fact that just a few months back a crowd of twenty grown men would have put quite the fright into me. But not even one hour before, I was staring down just such a group comfortable in the knowledge I could take all their lives with just one order to Gorgie. It was hard to imagine any of those people could have stood up against my harn.
Chapter 4
IT HAD BEEN more than two weeks since we came down into the valley. Today is the last day of the month of Snowberry. As bad luck would have it, this year it fully lived up to its name. In places, the snow drifts came up over my waist. If Gorgie hadn’t been clearing the path for me, it isn’t likely I’d have made it this far.
Nearer midday, we reached a wide lake with a village on its shores. Really it was more of a small town, surrounded with time-grayed stockades made of sharp-tipped logs. There was even a tower at the gates and a few other places for archers.
That was where the sleigh tracks we’d been travelling along all this time ended. And when we reached the forest edge, we saw that there were several such sets of tracks. They stretched out in various directions and ran into a huge tent camp that had formed in the no-man’s land outside the town walls. By the looks of things, there were refugees here from the whole border area. And the people just kept coming and coming.
Smoke from hundreds of fires rose up over the town and camp forming a huge dark cloud. A great reference point for orcish scouts, by the way.
The shouting of people, neighing of horses, howling of dogs, mooing of cows and bleating of sheep all blended together into one loud drone.
“Why are these people here?” Mee asked in surprise, his eyes wide and staring at something happening near the lake. “Why don’t they keep moving? Are they really counting on these flimsy walls stopping the Horde?”
“Good questions. We’ll have to get them answered when we go into town,” I muttered thoughtfully and added: “Or rather when I go. You and Gorgie wait here.”
“You sure it’s safe for you?” Mee asked anxiously.
“Absolutely,” I answered, smiling. “Look at that mess. New refugees are arriving all the time, and nobody is inspecting them. I don’t see any authorities. I get the feeling the people in this settlement fend for themselves. So one more boy arriving is hardly going to pique anyone’s interest.”
“Do you have to?” Mee made a final attempt to dissuade me.
“A little info couldn’t hurt,” I answered with a reassuring tone. “Beyond that, we need to resupply. Yes, thanks to Gorgie we have plenty of meat, but I’d like a little variety in our rations.”
Then, smiling, I added:
“I’ll buy you some sugar drops. You have to try them.”
“Hrn!”
“And you too. How could I forget about you?”
In the end, after he heard all my reasoning Mee relented. And there was no need to reassure Gorgie. As soon as the harn heard there was some new tasty treat he “had to try,” he even started hurrying me along.
As expected, it wasn’t particularly difficult to blend into the larger group of refugees. The people wandering the road weren’t the least bit surprised to see me emerge from the forest. As a matter of fact, nobody even paid me any attention. A few distant fleeting gazes excepted. I’m sure more than half the people here had appeared suddenly from the forest same as me. Just one more forest-dweller fleeing the Horde.
As I walked along the road, a strange and unexpectedly pleasant feeling washed over me – I was among humans once again!
Some riding horses, some on sleighs, and others on foot like me – they were all in a rush to reach the village. When they saw the camp, the people lit up. Smiles appeared on their weary faces – their long-awaited rest was near at hand.
For the most part, the people weren’t talking but there were others who were not opposed to a bit of tongue wagging.
“What do you think, is the ice thick enough yet?” a scrawny little man walking in front of me asked his larger pal.
I could hear anxiety in his squeaking voice.
The bigger guy adjusted his fur hat and declared confidently:
“Of course! Praise the gods this Snowberry turned out frostier’n most! It’ll be three or even four hands thick for sure.”
I noticed the puny one glance at his hands, imagining the approximate thickness of the ice. That made the bigger one laugh hard and release a cloud of steam:
“Don’t be afraid, buddy! We’ll give it our best shot! And just for the record, I was talking about my hands, not yours! Ha-ha!”
Strange as it may have been, the puny one wasn’t offended by the joke. I seemed to even hear him breathe a sigh of relief. I get that – the big guy’s mitts were impressively large. Not mere hands, but shovel blades.
“Then why are they still here?” asked the puny one, notes of anxiety slipping through in his voice again.
Hm, it looks like we aren’t the only ones bothered by that fact.
“Bug knows,” the big one answered, scratching the back of his head in confusion. “Maybe they’re deciding who will lead the caravan?”
“Why the military governor will lead it, right?” the puny one said in disbelief.
“Uh, no sir, brother. My nephew told me that this fall the military governor left for Borg by boat with his retinue. And left his senior chargeman in his stead. But him and his pack of bitches got some big old deal of a report, packed up his family and all their belongings and headed north.”
“Gee whizz...”
The men spent a bit of time in silence.
I meanwhile started feverishly recalling geography lessons... Borg... Borg... Somehow familiar... That’s it! I remember! That must mean we’d been in the lands of Baron Orthgar all this time. Borg is the capital of his barony.
Confirming my guesses, the puny one said:
“So Orthgar must have decided to meet the orcs in Borg.”
“And rightly so!” the big man exclaimed, shaking his big mitt belligerently. “Those hognoses will surely snag their tusks on the walls of Borg!”
It took me some effort not to cringe. Naive fools. Looks like they don’t even have a close appreciation of the vast size of the force coming their way. And the most regrettable part is that even if I tell them right now, they won’t believe me. A kid, a zero. How should I know what’s happening at the border? In the best case they’d simply laugh at me. Like, kid’s so spooked he’s imagining a swarm of orcs. But by all appearances the military governor and his cowardly chargeman knew there’d be trouble and hauled their asses as far from this place as they could get.
Overall, by the time I reached the first row of tents, I already had an approximate idea of what was going on. To myself, I called these refugees the second wave. Though it might have even been the third. The first, most well-off and obviously best-informed wave had long since fled deeper into the country. Back before the ice came over the lake and river that flowed into it.
The people still here were waiting for the ice to get thick enough for them to continue up the river. After all, the river is the best way whether in winter or summer.
The prospect of hoofing it through the forest and slogging my way through chest-deep snowbanks, to put it lightly, didn’t fill me with glee. It was somewhat comfier and faster to travel by sleigh. But if the gremlin showed his face here, he would immediately become the talk of the town. And we don’t want that level of fame.
&n
bsp; Ugh, I was still putting off solving the issue of legalizing Mee and didn’t even have an approximate idea of what to do next. Of course, we could always keep going through the forest along the river. But that’s just delaying the inevitable.
So overwhelmed by heavy thoughts, I entered the settlement, which the locals called Tradepost. The fleeting sensation I got after first being reunited with other humans went away as soon as I reached the camp’s first tents. A mixture of snow, garbage, cow dung, fish scales and guts and Bug knows what else had formed a nauseating brown crust. The stench of the place was unimaginable. I don’t even want to think what this place will be like when the snow and ice start to melt.
My first impression was wrong. There were authorities of some kind here after all. But they didn’t much look like law enforcement. The ugly mugs of highwaymen. Levels from nine to eleven. Their equipment and weaponry leave something to be desired. Exactly the same as the marauders from the village.
Although what difference does it make to me? They let me enter the settlement, so no big deal.
There was just as much filth inside the walls. The people, darting to and fro, weren’t especially concerned with what was beneath their feet.
I stopped and looked around. I may have gotten ahead of myself when I called this place a town. It’s just a large settlement with around thirty single-story buildings. Although, to those from small villages and forest farmsteads, this must feel like a big city. And not any old city. The telltale name, convenient location, presence of representatives of the Baron until recently, stockade wall, towers – this must be something of a regional trade center.
To my surprise, the people were behaving peaceably. And if fights did break out, they quickly came to an end. Seems like I shouldn’t have been thinking so poorly of the local authorities.
Soon after, when I reached the middle of the village, I realized why. There were several tall poles lining the fairly wide central square – a dozen, no more. And each of the poles had two or three corpses hanging from them. Every one of the dead bodies had a sign around their neck summarizing the crime they’d been executed for. Mainly murderers, rapists and thieves. There were also a few rabble rousers, clearly having thought they could rise up against the local authorities. At the very least, I had no other explanation.
On the very last pole, there hung three bodies with no signs. Or rather, what was left of them. I walked up a bit closer and finally realized why they didn’t need signs – these frozen chunks of meat used to be orcs.
I took a look around. It didn’t look like the hanging corpses were bothering anyone. Well, other than the new arrivals. The men walking in front of me also hung back for a bit to behold the condemned. Then the big guy hawked a juicy loogie at the base of the pole where the rabble rousers hung and pulled his buddy toward a wide building with a distinctive sign depicting a piglet roasting on a spit.
A market was being held in the middle of the square. On offer were mainly various items no one really had any need for under current circumstances. Old furniture, clothing, dishes. Basically all the stuff people had packed up to take with them but, after a few days underway, realized was just junk that was slowing them down. And now the bad-luck sellers were standing in rows peddling that useless junk at rock-bottom prices.
Honestly, there were also a few stalls with long lines. At them meat, flour, grains and bread were sold to the highest bidder. Remembering the promise I made to my friends, I scanned the stalls but, alas, didn’t find any selling sugar drops. Clearly the people here didn’t have any time for sugar drops.
But still I didn’t leave empty handed. I managed to buy a jar of honey, five flatbreads, six onions, four winter apples, half a wheel of goat cheese and three small coils of garlicky sausage.
And the swindlers charged me nearly ten silver coins for that uncomplicated fare! Robbery in broad daylight! But the people standing in line with me were paying the very same price, so I had to suppress the storm of indignation brewing within me.
By the way, as not to spawn unwanted questions, I had picked out coins with the Steel King’s profile in advance. Thankfully, the orcs had more than enough of them. But when I saw what the others were using to settle accounts, I realized that was an unnecessary precaution. Coins from all over the continent were in circulation.
Pointedly stashing my coin purse and purchases in my knapsack, I headed toward the dock. As I went, I transferred all the items into my ephemeral backpack. Once my knapsack was empty, the disagreeable pressure on my shoulder went away at once.
When I got onto the dock, I saw a few men in the distance, nearly in the middle of the lake, drilling into the ice with a wide tool. I also noticed that a short thin scamp had followed me all the way there from the market. And in the distance another two older boys.
Hm... Got it. Flash a few silvers and get an escort in the form of local pickpockets. Wellp, they’re in for a surprise.
The exclamations of glee from the middle of the lake told me that the thickness of the ice was safe for travel. I bet the caravan will get underway within two days. Ugh, how exactly are we going to join up with them? But alas, it doesn’t seem to be in the cards.
Pensively walking over the central square to leave the settlement, in the commotion I felt my shoulder strap give a slight tug. Sure enough, the little bandits had waited for an opportunity and stuck their impudent paws into my knapsack.
Slowly turning and running my gaze over the pack of thieves, I saw the trio from the dock. The sight of the little failed thieves was amusing. The littlest one was looking at me point blank. I could read approximately this on his face: “I watched you put food and a coin purse into this knapsack with my own two eyes! And you didn’t take anything out!”
When our gazes met, I smiled and winked at him, then nodded to the right. The boy, frowning even harder, slowly turned his head where I motioned and shuddered. As it happened, he was standing one step away from a post with a corpse hanging from it. And the sign hanging around the dead man’s neck read “THIEF.”
I turned back around and kept moving. I was less than a hundred steps left to the gate tower when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something to my left that made me stop dead in the middle of the road.
My abrupt stop came as a surprise to the aunty walking behind me. A strong push to my back and I was fully splayed out on the dirty snow. Thankfully I managed to put my hands out in front of me. Otherwise I’d have gotten a mouthful of filth.
“What do you think you’re doing, muck-eater?!” she tore into me ragefully, her baggy cheeks shaking. “I just about killed myself because of you, savage beast of the forest!”
Stepping over me pointedly and continuing to curse, the aunty got back on her way.
I then, not paying any attention to the insults and foul language, slowly stood to my feet. My mouth open dumbfounded, I was staring at a hulking figure next to a large covered wagon. His alien appearance was what distracted me before the fall.
I even had to rub my eyes and take another look. But nothing changed. Everyone around was still going about their business. The sentries at the gate towers were swapping tall tales. The archers on the towers were keeping watch over the surrounding area. A pack of kiddos raced past me making a gleeful racket.
I turned my head and stared at the unusual hulking figure again. I wanted to shout loudly: “Am I the only one who sees a big blue orc in the middle of a human settlement right now?!”
Chapter 5
JUST WHEN I’d started to think the difficult trek through the Wastes had taken a toll on my psyche, the cover of the wagon lifted up. In the gap I saw a woman of diminutive stature. Waving a hand, she called the hulk over.
Yikes! I breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from my brow with relief. Thank the gods. And here I’d started thinking I’d gone birdhouse cuckoo...
Trying not to draw attention, I slowly strolled toward the odd couple. With less than ten steps left to the wagon I stopped and, pretendin
g to retie my boot, got down on my right knee. Meanwhile, I was clocking the hulk out of the corner of my eye.
The blue orc was a true giant. But not because of his fur clothing. No. He really was a few times larger than other orcs. It’s like comparing a hardened alpha wolf to a little stray dog.
Neck like a bull’s, a broad ribcage, long mitts, considerable legs. From behind he’d pass for a troll of middling height.
His tar black hair was pleated into dozens of narrow little braids, which were pulled back into a tight tail. His narrow sloping brow was cut across by a nasty slanted scar. Closely set coal-black eyes flickered from beneath his heavy curved brows. A square chin like a stone block jutted obstinately forward. Two yellow tusks protruded from beneath his lower lip.
Without a doubt, the sight of the strange orc made an impression. If I’d met him four months ago, I’d probably have been hiccupping in fear. But not today. I’ve seen scarier visages in my day. The evil grin of a blackblood alone was much worse!
The Dark Continent (Underdog Book #3): LitRPG Series Page 4