The Bone Orcs

by Jonathan Moeller

  “This should be far enough,” said Ridmark, looking around the Forest. “We’re within the circle of their undead guards, and I doubt the orcs themselves will leave the barrow until their ceremony is complete.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” said Peter. “You heard that demon the shaman called up. Hhrolazur is going to sacrifice seven virgins. That means children. He’s going to murder children to power his damned spell.”

  “He is,” said Ridmark.

  “We have to do something, but I don’t know what,” said Peter. “We can’t stop him. If we try to interfere, he’ll just kill us and continue on.”

  “We have to interfere at the right time,” said Ridmark.

  “What the devil does that mean?” said Peter.

  “Listen to me,” said Ridmark. “You heard the Old One. The spell has to take place when Saginus and Shardus reach their apex. That will be a little after midnight.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” said Peter.

  “I don’t properly understand it,” said Ridmark, “but from what the Magistri have told me, each of the thirteen moons influences the use of magic in some way or another. So certain spells are more powerful when one moon or another is in its apex, or when the thirteen moons are in a precise configuration.”

  “So this spell will only work when those two moons are at their apex?” said Peter.

  “Aye,” said Ridmark. “That must be why Hhrolazur attacked Toricus. He knew that Saginus and Shardus would be in their apex tonight, so he knew he could summon that Old One out of the barrow…”

  “And the Old One would tell him what to do,” said Peter. “So what good does that do us?”

  “Because I think the spell has to work precisely as the Old One said,” said Ridmark. “If the slightest thing goes wrong, the spell will fail…”

  “And the Old One will be furious with Hhrolazur,” said Peter.

  “Or, worse for the Qazaluuskan orcs,” said Ridmark, “they will interpret it as an unfavorable omen.”

  “Ah!” said Peter. “That would be better. If they think an ill omen has befallen them, they shall abandon everything and return to their homes. Their superstitions rule them with a rod of iron.” He grunted. “That’s clever.”

  “My old sword master said the best path to victory was to make allies of your foe’s weaknesses,” said Ridmark.

  “Just how are we going to do that?” said Peter.

  “I have a few ideas,” said Ridmark. “Follow me.”

  ###

  As the day vanished and slid into night, Ridmark and Peter worked.

  At first Ridmark feared that the bone orcs would discover them, but that fear proved groundless. The orcs remained occupied with the preparations for Hhrolazur’s ritual, and while they had set their undead servants to guard them, the mindless things kept to a perimeter and did not venture within it. If Ridmark and Peter tried to escape, the undead would swarm them, but so long as they stayed near the barrow, the undead would leave them alone.

  Ridmark alternated between helping Peter with the work and keeping an eye on the orcs. The bone orcs moved their prisoners away from the open entrance to the barrow to create a clear space. In that clear space Hhrolazur and some of the other bone orcs labored, casting spells. They had written a massive double circle of ghostly blue fire upon the ground, and the double circle intersected seven smaller circles around its circumference.

  Ridmark suspected that the seven victims of the spell would stand within those circles.

  The captives were restless, but the bone orcs kept watch over them. Twice some of the men tried to break free, and the Qazaluuskan orcs responded by killing them. After that, the captives remained quiescent, though their fear and tension was obvious.

  Night fell, but Ridmark had no trouble seeing. Nine of the thirteen moons were out tonight, following the complex patterns of their risings and settings. Of the nine moons visible, Saginus and Shardus were the brightest. The Old One had indeed been right. Around midnight, Ridmark judged, the moons would reach their apex.

  And then Hhrolazur would murder seven children.

  Ridmark watched the orcs and the captives for a little while longer, and the circled back down the far slope of the hill. Peter waited there, an axe in his hand, his face hard and tense in the reddish light of the nine moons.

  “What now?” said Peter.

  “We’ll wait a little while longer,” said Ridmark.

  Peter scowled. “We should act now.”

  “They haven’t started the ceremony yet,” said Ridmark. “That’s when the interruption will work the best. If we act now, they’ll simply kill us, and carry on where they left off.”

  Peter let out a long, ragged breath, his knuckles tight against the axe’s haft, but gave a nod at last.

  “Fine,” he said. “Go and watch. But let me know the minute we need to act.”

  “Be ready to conceal yourself,” said Ridmark.

  Peter gave a sharp nod, and Ridmark crept back to the top of the hill to watch the preparations. Hhrolazur and some of the bone orcs continued working on the circle, casting spell after spell. Other orcs sprinkled dried blood onto the circle, while others recited chants to Qazalask as they gestured with old bones or mummified limbs, repeating their hymns to the Lord of Bones over and over again. None of the orcs kept watch on the surrounding countryside, and only a few of them guarded the prisoners. It would have been an ideal time to launch an attack, and even a few mounted knights would have been able to scatter the bone orcs. Yet Ridmark did not have any mounted knights. He had an angry blacksmith, a staff, and an axe.

  He also had his gray cloak.

  Hopefully, that would be enough.

  Midnight drew closer, the Moon of Blood and the Moon of Souls rising higher. The majority of the Qazaluuskan orcs took up a wailing, moaning chant, repeating the same phrases in orcish over and over again. Seven orcs walked up to the circle, and each orc pricked one of his fingers, letting a few drops of blood fall. The double lines of blue fire hissed and flared, seeming to feed off the blood and grow stronger.

  The seven orcs took seven children, carrying them to the circle, while Hhrolazur took his position before the stone door, the skulls upon his staff rattling as he began a spell. Ridmark wondered if John and Mary were among those children.

  Hopefully, none of them would die.

  Ridmark hurried down the hill, back to where Peter waited with the piled kindling.

  “Now?” said Peter.

  “Now,” said Ridmark. “Hhrolazur has started his spell. I suspect interruptions would prove harmful.”

  Peter’s teeth flashed in his beard with a savage grin. “Good.”

  He produced a piece of flint and started striking sparks from the edge of his axe. Several of the trees had died in this part of the forest, though they remained standing as brittle husks waiting for a strong wind to knock them over.

  Or a fire to burn them out.

  Ridmark and Peter had occupied themselves by piling kindling around the base of the dead trees, and now the kindling took fire with a whooshing sound. At once the fire climbed up the dry trunk. They had prepared five trees, and Ridmark and Peter hastened to set them afire. Before long all five trees would transform into towering torches.

  The bone orcs couldn’t help but notice.

  “Get ready to run,” said Ridmark.

  “Are you sure that this is going to work?” said Peter.

  “Not at all,” said Ridmark.

  “Well, at least you’re honest,” said Peter.

  Ridmark heard shouts of alarm from the other side of the hill.

  “Go!” he said.

  “Good luck,” said Peter.

  “You, too,” said Ridmark, and he turned and broke into a jog while Peter ran down the side of the hill. Ridmark sprinted to the base of the hill, circling east towards the back of the massive, rocky barrow. The barrow seemed to glow in the gloom, and from time to time Ridmark saw flickers of blue fir
e beneath the grass and trees upon the barrow’s surface. Was the Old One working magic of its own?

  He tugged his gray cloak closer and circled around the base of the barrow.

  The gray cloak was his best hope of the plan working. Years ago, not long after he had become a Swordbearer, he had undertaken a quest to Urd Morlemoch on behalf of the high elven archmage Ardrhythain. When Ridmark had returned successful, Ardrhythain had given him this cloak. It looked like a simple gray cloak, unremarkable in all respects. Yet it never needed to be washed or cleaned, and it never tore or frayed, and it had a remarkable capability for stealth. It didn’t make him invisible by any means, yet it had a knack for helping him to remain concealed when necessary.

  Though with the bloody light of the moons overhead and the strange blue glow of the circle, the resultant maze of shadows meant that Ridmark hardly needed the cloak to remain unseen.

  He followed the curve of the barrow’s base, and the stone door came into sight. Hhrolazur stood not ten yards from Ridmark, still casting his spell, blue fire burning up and down his staff. The seven children, boys and girls both, stood frozen around the circumference of the burning circle. Their expressions were empty, slack. Likely Hhrolazur’s magic held them fast.

  Yet most of the orcs were not watching the spell.

  Most of the bone orcs were running up the slope with weapons in hand, heading towards the burning trees. For a brief moment Ridmark wondered why Hhrolazur had not stopped his spell, and then realized that his guess had been right. The orcish shaman had not stopped his spell because he could not…or he dared not for fear of the consequences. Ridmark did not know what it would take to ruin Hhrolazur’s spell. Likely removing just one of the children would be enough to break the spell and earn the Old One’s fury.

  He stepped forward, intending to pick up the nearest child from the circle, and a cry of alarm rang out.

  Ridmark whirled just as a Qazaluuskan orc ran at him, brandishing an axe. Ridmark ducked under the first sweep of the axe, jumped back to avoid the second, and thrust his staff before the orc could line up a third blow. The end of the staff hit the orc in the stomach, and the warrior stumbled. Ridmark brought his staff down on the orc’s head, and the Qazaluuskan orc fell motionless to the ground.

  He turned to see nearly a score of bone orcs sprinting towards him, weapons in hand. There was no way Ridmark could fight them all, no way he could even escape.

  He tried, anyway.

  Ridmark charged into the mass of bone orcs, attacking and blocking. He killed two of his enemies in rapid succession, but he took a glancing hit across the left forearm and another upon his upper right arm. A sword slashed across his chest. His heavy leather jerkin deflected the edge of the sword, but the power of the blow staggered him.

  Yet he forced his way ahead as the orcs closed around him, and at last Ridmark flung himself forward.

  He hit the nearest child, a boy of about nine, and knocked him over, moving him out of the smaller circle. Ridmark fell across the double lines of the larger circle, and the cold blue fire washed over him, a horrible pain shooting up his legs and into his chest. He scrambled backwards, trying to get away, and suddenly a booming roar rose from the circle, the earth making a grinding noise like the growl of a furious bear.

  “Idiot!” screamed Hhrolazur, his black eyes wide with fear. “What have you done? Kill him. Kill him! Kill…”

  The bone orcs behind Ridmark raised their weapons, and then blue fire flared in the darkness of the stone doorway of the barrow.

  The shaman whirled, and the Old One glided into sight once more, a black-armored shadow wreathed in blue fire.

  “Fool!” roared the Old One, its voice booming over the valley. The bone orcs froze in terror, gazing at the undead creature. “You have failed to perform the rite! You have failed to respect the laws of the Lord of Bones!”

  “It was not my fault, Old One!” said Hhrolazur, quailing back. “The human, the human interfered with the…”

  “You should have stopped him!” thundered the Old One, lifting its free hand. “You have offended the Lord of Bones with your disrespect! You shall explain your failure before the throne of Qazalask himself!”

  The bone orcs around Ridmark threw down their weapons and fled, terrified of the Old One’s wrath. Ribbons of blue fire erupted from the Old One’s hand and wrapped around the screaming Hhrolazur, trapping him like a fly caught in a spider’s web. The Old One melted back into the darkness of the barrow, pulling the struggling shaman after him.

  The massive stone door slammed shut, sealing Hhrolazur in the barrow with the Old One.

  Ridmark staggered to his feet as the blue circle sputtered and vanished. He looked around as the bone orcs fled from the Old One’s tomb, leaving their captives behind.

  It seemed that the plan had worked after all.

  ###

  The next morning Ridmark walked with the freed villagers back to the ruins of Toricus. He still intended to venture into the Qazaluuskan Forest in search of an Elder Shaman, but he would see the villagers back to their homes, at least. They would have a great deal of rebuilding before them, but the people of the Northerland were accustomed to hardship, and Ridmark had no doubt that they would rebuild.

  John walked next to Peter, a younger, sober-faced version of his father. Peter himself carried Mary in his arms. The little girl seemed to have come through the ordeal without much ill effect, and chattered constantly as they walked.

  “And then, Papa,” said Mary, “the Gray Knight came and knocked over the bone orcs.”

  Peter blinked. “Gray Knight?”

  Mary pointed at Ridmark. “There. That knight, Papa. The knight in the gray cloak.”

  Ridmark snorted. “I am not a knight, child.”

  “Yes, you are,” said Mary with all the innocent impertinence of youth. “You are the Gray Knight.”

  Peter laughed. “A good name.”

  “Perhaps,” said Ridmark.

  He still intended to find the secret of the Frostborn or die in the attempt.

  Still, he was glad that he had been able to help these people upon the way.

  THE END

  Thank you for reading THE BONE ORCS. If you liked the book, please consider leaving a review at your ebook site of choice. To receive immediate notification of new releases, sign up for my newsletter (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=1854), or watch for news on my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jonathan-Moeller/328773987230189).

  Follow this link to read the next adventure for Ridmark and his companions in Frostborn: The Gray Knight (http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?page_id=4069).

  ***

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