by Martha Carr
She nodded and slowly lowered her hands. At least they’re asking first and saving the fight for later. Hopefully never. “Yep. This blue troll and I are stepping right through that portal too.”
“She’s lying.” The orc who’d thrown his wife and child behind him snarled. “The Crown has spies everywhere. This one’s no different.”
“Ha!” Persh’al dropped his hands and gestured at the huddled magicals around the black boulder, all of them in threadbare clothes and looking haggard and worn-out. “If the Crown wanted to stop you, you wouldn’t have made it out here. And we can all admit you’re flattering yourselves with that thinking, right? You think she’ll spend the resources she has to stop a few small families and this starving wannabe?” He gestured at the skinny orc, who stared blankly at the ground and shrugged.
“She stopped my cousin,” one of the orc women added softly. “Sent guards to the portal and had everyone rounded up and carried away in chains.”
Persh’al cocked his head. “Was it at this portal?”
“No. It was in Simmara.”
“Well, see? There you go. No guards here. No Crown spies. We’re just trying to get across to the other side like everyone else here.”
“But she’s a drow.”
Cheyenne sighed as Persh’al stomped toward the line of orc men. Confused and wary, they stepped away and let him pass. Then they turned their gazes on the halfling again, and their suspicion quickly returned. What’s it gonna take to convince these guys?
“Look, the Crown can suck it for all I care.”
“Suck what?”
She clenched her eyes shut and shook her head. O’gúleesh talk, halfling.
“She can eat the deathflame torch, all right?” The orcs’ eyes widened, and one of the women behind them gasped. “Honestly, I’m really looking forward to the day somebody takes her down and buries her for good. Or mounts her head on a spike. Who knows?”
Two orc mothers covered their children’s ears with both hands and glared at the halfling.
“Whoever does that has my full support.”
Persh’al grimaced and rubbed the side of his shaved, orange-speckled head.
“Time to turn a new Cycle, right? Which I’m guessing all of you are trying to do on your own by packing up your lives and taking it all with you through the crossing. Good call right now if you ask me. It would also be a pretty good call to let my friend and me through so we can get where we’re trying to go. And if you keep up, we’ll help you get to the other side in one piece.”
The orc men exchanged surprised looks, and one by one, their attack spells petered out. “You’ve made the crossing?”
“Sure, once or twice.” Almost.
The skinny orc readjusted his huge bag over his shoulder and nodded, stalking across the line of his friends until he stood in front of Cheyenne. “I’ll go with you.”
“Cabrus, we don’t know a thing about her!”
Cabrus cut off the doubting orc with a flying hand gesture from chin to groin. The orc mothers covered their children’s eyes now, and Cheyenne thought, they’ve got their own middle finger over here. Not surprising.
“I know all I need to know,” Cabrus said with a grunt. “The Crown’s loyalists are too scared to talk about her the way this drow just did. The rest of us are too. I believe her, and if I have to choose between walking beside a drow through the crossing and walking alone, I’ll take my chances with the drow.” He nodded at Cheyenne, then stalked through the group of staring orcs until he joined Persh’al beside the portal boulder with a snigger. “And a blue troll, I guess.”
Persh’al snorted. “What a fantastic team.”
The refugees fell silent, apparently waiting for someone else to make the decision for them. Cheyenne stepped through the small crowd, counting three young children and an old, frail-looking orc woman who scowled at her. She stopped beside Persh’al and the skinny Cabrus, then gazed at the weary refugees and shrugged. “That was a serious offer, by the way. We can help you get across safely. All of you.”
“And what does the mór edhil want in return?” the old orc asked, pointing at Cheyenne with a gnarled green finger.
Cheyenne studied the aged magical and shook her head. “Nothing.”
The wizened orc threw her head back and cackled. “Done. Can’t go back on your word now.”
“Fegri, wait!”
“No. I’ve come this far. The rest of you can stand around like dullards trying to figure this one out, but I’m taking the leap. I’ve got a drow bodyguard. Can you believe that?” The old woman cackled again and hobbled quickly toward Cheyenne and Persh’al. “Wouldn’t mind giving this here blue troll a personal thank you, though.”
Persh’al frowned as the elder pursed her wrinkled lips and eyed him. Then he chuckled and glanced at Cheyenne. “The old one’s got a dirty mind.”
The halfling smiled at him. “At least she’s grateful.”
“All right, listen up.” Persh’al waved the unsure group of orcs closer. “We’re going through. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome, but I’ll tell you right now, we’re not turning back for anyone. Once you go through, it’s dead ahead or plain dead, got it?”
The crying orc woman whimpered again but stepped forward in her older friend’s arms.
Cheyenne leaned toward Persh’al and muttered, “Was that necessary.”
“Yeah, it was. They need to know the risks, kid.”
“Just by looking at them, I’d say they already know.”
He dipped his head and frowned. “Well, now no one can say we didn’t warn ‘em. Let’s move.”
Persh’al slapped Cabrus’ arm with the back of his hand and nodded for the skinny orc to step up to the boulder beside him. “How’s your aim with those fireballs?”
“Uh, decent.”
“Decent. We can work with that.”
Persh’al leaped onto the boulder and disappeared. Cabrus quickly followed him, and Cheyenne offered her hand to the old orc woman.
“I don’t need that.” Fegri clapped a wrinkled, gnarled hand to Cheyenne’s cheek and grinned, exposing worn-down yellow teeth between her stunted tusks. “I got more jump in me yet, mór edhil. You make sure I don’t have to use it.”
Grunting, Fegri pushed herself up onto the boulder and vanished.
Cheyenne dipped her chin at the other waiting orcs and nodded. “Time to go.”
No one moved, so she slowly turned and climbed onto the black stone. I can’t make them come with us, but I hope they do.
She took one more step toward the top of the boulder and slipped through the portal opening. The pressure of entering the in-between burned in her legs and brought an instant, pounding headache. Then she drew a long, gasping breath and staggered forward.
Persh’al and Cabrus were still coughing, trying to clear away the stark pressure of crossing from one world to the non-world between. Fegri chortled, her gnarled hands clasped in front of her as she watched the others catching their breath. “Look at that. Pays to be an old crone some days, don’t it?”
Cheyenne cleared her throat and approached her. “That didn’t bother you?”
“That little pinch? Bah. I’ve been smoking bilweed since I was a pup. Who knew I’d be grateful for the fell-damn stuff?” Fegri patted a small purse strapped to the belt at the top of her skirt and chortled again. “And I’m taking it Earthside.”
I’m gonna pretend that’s O’gúleesh tobacco and not ask any questions.
“Can’t stop for too long,” Persh’al wheezed, clapping Cabrus on the shoulder. The skinny orc grunted and stepped forward.
A round of gasps and startled, choked coughing rose behind them.
“Ah.” Fegri peered at the line of orcs stumbling through the portal into the in-between. “They’re not as dumb as they look. Keep moving, children! We’re following the blue one.”
Tittering, she hobbled off behind Persh’al and Cabrus, eyeing the black smoke spewing from geysers in the nonex
istent wasteland between worlds.
Cheyenne turned to wave the others forward, and the thin line of orcs became a frightened, trembling group of them on the other side of the boulder. “Gotta keep moving. Stay close.”
The orcs supported each other through coughing fits and wheezing breaths, but the sight of the dead nothingness around them and the black fog creeping across the in-between in thick tendrils got them all moving quickly.
Yeah, that’d light a fire under anyone’s ass.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Cheyenne and the rest of the refugees caught up with Persh’al, Cabrus, and Fegri fairly quickly. The two orc women jumped at everything that moved, but Cheyenne forced herself not to snap at them about it. Anything I say right now is only gonna terrify them even more.
She hurried to the other side of Persh’al and glanced at Cabrus, who stared at the shifted non-landscape with wide eyes. Behind them, Fegri muttered to herself, squinting at everything and letting out the occasional sharp bark of laughter.
Leaning toward the troll, she muttered, “You know, I think we might’ve overlooked one important detail in all this?”
“Oh, yeah?” Persh’al warily scanned the twisting fog around them. “What’s that?”
“We’re not going back the way we came.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Going through that portal in Grimmer is gonna spit us out at a reservation.” A tree half a dozen yards on their right groaned in the eerie silence. The sound cut off abruptly when a puff of black smoke wafted in front of it and took the dead thing somewhere else in the in-between. “Isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
“Persh’al, I cannot show up at a Border rez. The FRoE’s gonna recognize me and start asking way more questions than I can reasonably refuse to answer.”
“Relax, kid. We covered that part.” Persh’al slipped a small vial out of his pocket and wiggled it beside his hip before secreting it away again. “Not as fancy as the nalís L’zar gave you, but it’s powered by the same thing.”
Cheyenne frowned. Nightstalker blood in a vial. Cute. “From Corian?”
“Yeah.” The troll darted a quick glance at Cabrus, who might or might not have been listening as he staggered forward and tried to look in every direction at once. “The second we’re out of this place, I’ll use it, and we’ll pop right back into the warehouse. Only room for two, though, yeah?”
“Right.” Can’t let any first-time Earthsiders slip into a nightstalker portal cast by a blue troll. Nobody wants to deal with that fallout.
“We’ve been walking for a long time,” Cabrus croaked.
“I heard there was supposed to be monsters.” Fegri cackled behind them, making the skinny orc jump.
“Nothing’s supposed to happen here,” Persh’al replied, “as long as we keep moving.”
“It does seem a little less eventful,” Cheyenne muttered.
“Nah, that’s because you’ve done this. Recently.” Persh’al turned and raised a hand toward the clustered refugees shuffling along behind them. “How we doing back there?”
Every orc making the crossing looked at him with glowing yellow eyes, but no one said a thing.
“Good enough for me.” The troll cleared his throat and peered through the fog. “Maybe Nu’ek had it right the whole time, shippin’ us to Grimmer for a crossing with a lot less action.”
“Huh.” Cheyenne frowned at a sickening wet, slithering sound coming from the right. “Might be a good time to knock on wood.”
“Oh, sure. Let me just go find some real quick.” Persh’al snorted. When he glanced ahead again, he broke out in a grin and pointed. “Hey. Doorway.”
“That’s it?” Cabrus gulped. “That’s the other side?”
“Sure is, Toothpick.”
“What?”
Persh’al nudged the skinny orc’s shoulder and shook his head. “Term of endearment. Hopefully, you’ll learn something about it when you pop out on the rez. Check it out, everybody! This is our stop coming up.”
A chorus of whispered voices rose from the terrified refugees, and one of them started crying softly.
Cheyenne frowned at the doorway. They don’t know what’s waiting for them after this. It’s gotta be better than what they’re leaving behind, but a Border rez isn’t worth tears of joy.
“Just keep moving,” Persh’al added.
A clicking growl echoed through the nothingness, rising mere yards in front of the crossing party. The black, gelatinous shape gyrated in the air, and Persh’al halted the line.
“Shit.”
Some of the orc women screamed. One of them darted away from the group, but Cheyenne grasped the orc woman’s wrist and yanked her back in. “Stay together! That’s the only way we’re gettin’ outta this.”
She summoned crackling black orbs in both hands, but before she had a chance to let loose, Cabrus blasted the growling black shape with a thick column of green fire. The in-between beast shrieked and wobbled like a mountain of Jell-O, then burst into a million fragments and blew away on the next gust of source-less wind.
“Decent aim.” Persh’al nudged the skinny orc with his elbow. “You weren’t kidding.”
Cabrus grinned until he remembered what they were doing here and why. “We keep going, right?”
“Yep. Everyone to the doorway. That big ol’ rectangle of light in the middle of nowhere. Come on. Hurry it up.”
The terrified refugees pushed forward in a single mass. Cheyenne turned and scanned the streaks of black smoke drifting across her vision. I know there’s more where that came from.
“Hey, kid.” Persh’al waved her forward as the group passed him and booked it to the doorway. “Any particular reason you’re standing there wasting more time?”
“It can’t be just one.” She turned and headed toward him.
“Sometimes one is all you need. Don’t be ungrateful.” He nodded at the doorway. “We’re lucky this time.”
The orc women screamed again, the men shouted, and Cheyenne and Persh’al turned to see the two black, glistening tentacles whipping out from behind the suspended doorway.
“Or not.”
They raced forward to join the fight. The orc men hurled flashing green attack spells at the waving tentacles, missing most of the shots. The monster hiding behind the doorway skittered into view. It looked like a giant crab, with four more grotesque tentacles sprouting from its back. It clicked and shrieked at them, freezing the refugees in their tracks.
Cheyenne hurled two black orbs of sparking magic at the crab thing's center and split it cleanly in half. One giant claw twitched and clicked on the ground before melting. The other rose on its own and drew the rest of the shattered crab-thing with it. It let out another grating screech, and the beast rose on thousands of tiny legs like a giant, morphing centipede.
“Get through the doorway!” Persh’al waved the frightened orcs forward, then flicked his wrist and brought up his trusty green magic whip.
The women and children broke into a run. The orc men ushered them forward and turned to launch their own attacks at the grotesque, scrambling new form the monster had taken. Each hit sent clouds of black smoke and shattered fragments through the air, but the creature kept racing toward them.
Persh’al lashed out with his whip, glancing over his shoulder to watch the fleeing refugees’ progress toward the door. “Just need to give them time!”
“Yep.” Cheyenne blasted the clacking, squealing centipede-thing with more churning balls of black energy and lifted a shield in front of two orc men staring down the wrong end of the monster’s spitting acid. The green slime pinged off the shimmering wall of her shield and disappeared beneath the black fog covering the ground. “Go!”
The orcs took off toward the doorway, tossing a few more attacks before they disappeared. Only three of their crossing party were left, and Cheyenne waved them away before darting toward the other side of the portal after them. Wind howled through the in-between, and Persh�
�al threw crackling darts of blue light at the monster between lashing out with his whip.
A screech ripped through the air, and the wind kicked up again, buffeting them. Cheyenne looked up and saw another massive bird-like creature, though its face and what could have been its beak opened in its belly to let out another piercing shriek. She flung her black tendrils at the creature’s amorphous legs, and they yanked the creature’s limbs from its body. The thing swooped down from the sky as Persh’al battled the centipede, and the last three orcs raced through the glowing doorway.
“Time to go, kid!” Persh’al stepped back, putting himself between the snapping, spitting monster on thousands of legs and their exit.
“Couldn’t agree more.” Cheyenne darted away from the flying monster as it landed in front of her with a shuddering boom. A column of glistening black burst from its headless shoulders like a newly grown neck and a huge red mouth opened wide to snap at her. She sent another black energy sphere blasting through the back of that mouth, and the creature reared back.
She froze when she saw something moving inside the creature beneath the surface of its shifting skin. Racing, pulsing lights of muted silver darted up the creature’s sides like LED lights, interspersed with symbols she didn’t recognize. “What the hell is that?”
“Cheyenne!”
The halfling whipped her head toward Persh’al, her hand lifting toward the activator she hadn’t removed. That wasn’t supposed to still be there.
A slimy tentacle wrapped around her ankle, so cold it burned her through her pants. Snarling, Cheyenne summoned another energy sphere and threw it at the bird-creature that had now become another thing on sharp, spearing legs. Then it jerked her off her feet and bashed her against the ground.
“Shit. Hold on!” Persh’al attacked the centipede again, which kept sprouting new legs and growing back whenever he blasted it apart. Then the centipede froze, let out a series of ominous clicks, and turned away from him before scuttling toward Cheyenne. “What?”
The troll cracked his green whip around the centipede’s pincer-tipped head and jerked back. The creature’s body severed beneath his magic with a wet slurp. The head burst before it hit the fog-covered ground, and by the time a new one grew in its place, the centipede had forgotten Persh’al.