Steel Wolves of Craedia (Realm of Arkon, Book 3)

by Akella,G.

  "What's your name, boy?" Karrosh patted Blackrock on the nape soothingly, and looked up at the kid.

  "Richard, earl!" the prince's son replied resolutely and without averting his eyes.

  "Show me where the beasts are coming from," the orc left the saddle with an easy hop, and laid out a map on the ground.

  "Here's Varuta, a wasteland ringed by mountains. Father thinks the dark gods had opened a portal to the Gray Frontier somewhere in the area."

  "Why didn't they check the valley from the start?" Karrosh growled at the kid.

  The youth started and grew pale in the face—the sight of the chieftain's fangs jutting out from under his lower lip was rather a chilling one.

  "Our scouts were in the valley not three days ago," he said at last. "If there were enemy troops in the area, they were hidden behind some kind of invisible veil. When a battle broke out this morning, the gods were attacked by four Lords and their armies; shortly after, Syrat's host struck the legions and the orcish infantry in the rear."

  "You said there were two dark gods!"

  "Kahella said that Vill's army was moving this way," the kid traced his finger along the map, indicating the conjectured route. "If the undead make it to the Gorge of Storms first, the entire cavalry will be effectively trapped. Vill has four Lords of Darkness with him—the goddess won't be able to hold out against them on her own."

  "So the undead are currently three miles south of here?"

  "Yes! Father said that you must hurry, chieftain."

  "Thoughts, Ohten?" Karrosh turned to his tribune.

  "I'd wager it's true," the latter said, listening to the sounds of battle in the distance. "Could also be the reason for that messenger from the kha'an this morning, bidding us to check out that gods-forsaken gorge."

  "I don't know, brother," Karrosh shook his head. "Maybe Rehan just suspected something foul? No matter. What say you, wolves? Are you ready to get up close and personal with the undead army?!" he bellowed, turning toward his cohort. Hearing cries of approval roared by thousands of orcish throats, he grinned and turned back to the youth.

  "Thank you, Richard," he nodded to the prince's son. "Tell your father that I never forget a debt." The orc walked over to his black-as-midnight warg, and hopped into the saddle in one fluid motion. "We'll move through there," his gauntleted hand pointed toward a cluster of boulders a mile or so away to the east. "If all this is true, we should have full view of Vill's army. His beasts are slow and unwieldy, and we should have no trouble skirting them and making it to the Gorge of Storms first. It's a pity there'll be heavy losses," he said with sorrow, "but there's nothing we can do to help them."

  All orcs were born warriors. Karrosh's father had given his son his first wooden sword at four years of age. "One day you will be chieftain, son," he said, tousling the boy's unruly hair, and the young orc would remember those words for the rest of his life. He'd lost his father five years later—the centurion died in a raid on the neighboring clan's lands, leaving his nine-year-old son as the only male in the family. Three little sisters and a suddenly aged mother, who had returned from the same raid with her left hand severed at the wrist, was all he had left in this world, which had seemed so clear and simple to him until then. But the words spoken by his father had taken root deep within his soul, and he'd gone on to become the first of the clan's new batch of young warriors to complete the ritual of joining with a warg. By the time he was fifteen, the young orc's exploits were becoming a frequent topic of conversation over a campfire. And thirty years later Hil'rut, an old shaman and head of the clan's council of elders, had solemnly awarded him the insignia of clan chieftain. At that moment, as Karrosh raised his trusty battle-axe overhead, his muscular silhouette glistening in the firelight as his tribesmen roared their support, he was looking at his mother's tearful eyes and remembering his father's words.

  The orc shook his head, chasing away the inopportune memories, and steered his warg around a massive white boulder. He was the first to leap out onto the grassy elevation, and swore loudly as he gazed down below at the enormous army of undead, stretching as far as the eyes could see. He doubted that any sentient creature had ever seen so many of these repulsive creatures at the same time.

  In the vanguard were bone spiders—massive, the size of a mature horse, hairy legs striking against the ground. There looked to be at least ten thousand of them. Quadrants of plate-clad death knights followed, and right after them, in an entourage of four giant monsters, a solitary figure wrapped in a gray cassock rode astride a beast the very sight of which induced nightmares. Even at this distance the orc could sense the terrible emanations of death radiating from the figure. As Karrosh stood there watching, one of the cassock's sleeves shifted, and a huge wave of spiders stirred, then gunned forward at much higher speed.

  "Spiders! No way the knights will escape now," Ohten exhaled behind him. "The spiders will slow them down until those things arrive," the tribune gestured at the black rows of death knights. "There's no way for our troops to get through. Assuming the prince had sent his kid as soon as he found out, the kha'an is just now getting word."

  "One of the shamans might have sent a falcon, in which case the kha'an should be retreating through the gorge as we speak. There are also human paladins and mages with their own means of communication."

  "Magic doesn't work in the valley," said Richard in a voice hoarse with shock, having squeezed his way through to the chieftain. "Your shamans' falcons hadn't taken flight either."

  "Human? You're still here?"

  "Father ordered me to lead you out of this trap, and I will carry out his order," the kid said stubbornly.

  "Well, then," the chieftain chuckled. "Let it be so."

  Having already met bone spiders in battle, Karrosh knew that the the ghastly spawns of the Gray Frontier hunted warm-blooded creatures, snaring their targets with sticky webs up to forty yards away. They would have no trouble overtaking a horse at short distances, especially if the horse was wearing armor and carrying an armored soldier... And while a knight could easily handle a dozen arachnids at a time, all the beasts had to do was slow the enemy without engaging in open battle, and the Erantian princes' unwieldy cavalry would be effectively stuck in the narrow Gorge of Storms. The orcs following the retreating humans would be trapped as well, and the dark god with his four Lords of Darkness would slaughter them all. Not a soul would survive, and the war would be lost in one fell swoop, in the bloody Fertan Valley. Unless... unless he and his cohort delayed this scum of a deity and his repugnant pets.

  "No one will escape, huh?" Karrosh chuckled. "If we went and smashed that gray son of a bitch in the teeth," the orc motioned in the god's direction, "he won't know our numbers right away, and he will call back his eight-legged freaks to cover his own skin."

  "You..." Ohten stared at his chieftain in disbelief. "You intend to attack a god?!" Suddenly the gray-haired tribune roared with laughter. "I am proud to have been your friend, Karrosh! This will be a glorious battle!"

  "Ride like the wind, boy. Tell your father the humans had better hurry and move their asses out of the valley. That is an order, duke! That is what your people call the sons of princes, isn't it?"

  "Aye," something flickered in the kid's eyes. "Neither me nor my father will ever forget this, chieftain." The prince's son nodded his goodbyes to the orcs, and whipped his horse, gunning it west, along the edge of the elevation.

  "Orcs!" Karrosh roared, turning his warg toward his troops, their formation broken. "If we don't stop Vill today, tomorrow the bastard will be in our camping grounds! Our brothers are dying over there," he threw out his hand, pointing toward the sounds of the distant battle. "So let's make sure our enemies remember this day till their dying breath!" Looking over the faces of his centurions in the front rows, the chieftain snatched his battle-axe from his waist, and barked the order to attack. Moments later, a thousand warg-riding orcs were rushing down the hillside like an avalanche, aiming to torpedo the boundless sea of
undead crawling across the valley.

  As the sun rose over the Kuratt Peaks ringing the valley, its resplendent rays illuminated the solitary figure of a young human riding west at full speed. The youth in the saddle was weeping, shackled by debility. He used to hate the orcs with a pure hatred, an unadulterated loathing, but today his world had turned upside down. No, he would never stop hating the green-skinned brutes, but today he'd learned to respect them.

  You've accessed the quest: Returning the Insignia.

  Quest type: epic, unique.

  Find Karrosh an Gort's descendant in the Orcish Steppe and give him the Bloody Spear clan chieftain's insignia.

  Reward: experience, unknown.

  "Again?" Salta was leaning over me, her eyes filled with compassion.

  "Well, yeah," I got up off the ground, holding on to the mage's arm. Putting the insignia away in my bag, I took a look around. "Reece," I motioned at the mountain of bones nearby that my demons had dragged there from the entire battlefield. "Why didn't you burn all this trash?"

  "We thought Vaessa might find some use for them. I'm no necromancer, I wouldn't know," the mage grinned. "Unfortunately, the magus is too distracted admiring the ring you gave her. Are we having an engagement party?"

  "Enough chitchat," I frowned. "Burn the bones. As for Nerghall's corpse, hmm..." I scratched my chin musingly. "In theory, it's supposed to disappear on its own, but I'm not totally sure. Try to burn it, too. If it doesn't work, screw it."

  I'd long noticed that bodies of dead mobs wouldn't disappear in the princedom, which could have been a byproduct of removing respawn. That meant having to find entirely conventional methods of getting rid of them. Now, Nerghall probably didn't care either way, but I really didn't feel like having the world boss' enormous carcass rotting barely a quarter mile from the castle I planned on using as the clan's temporary headquarters.

  "Why burn? Our garrulous mage needs practice extracting alchemical reagents from these creatures. And the same goes for everyone training in alchemy," Vaessa, who was standing a bit to the side, chimed in with a smile.

  "You're joking? Right?" the young man turned to me for support, but I pretended not to notice his appeal. "It would take a month to process all this," he added heatedly.

  "How often do you get to work on the body of a Lord of Darkness, dummy?" the magus was beginning to lose patience. "Can you even begin to imagine the quality of bone meal made from his bones, for instance? You do what you want, but I'll be working through the night until I gather every last bit!"

  Leaving the alchemists to their quarrel, I gestured for Schen to follow me. We walked over to Kharsa's body, lying all alone to the side, and I put my hand on the bones. This time nothing out of the ordinary happened, praise Hart. Nine rare items, some crafting recipes, rolls of ghostly silk that looked kind of like fabric for window curtains, a ton of different containers and almost eight hundred gold. Now what would a dog want with money? I chuckled to myself, transferring all but the castle symbol to the quartermaster. I looked around for James, who was debating something animatedly with the magus, having apparently tagged in for Reece. Catching my eyes, the tifling waved and headed my way briskly, leaving the necromancer's daughter fuming over something.

  "She doesn't want to give us the head, imagine that!" he said indignantly as he walked up. "She needs the eyes and the teeth, apparently. Oh, and some other foulness called uriomas!"

  "Why do you need the head?" I regarded him incredulously. "Are you making a stew?"

  "Are you being serious right now?" he inquired suspiciously.

  "Dead serious," I assured him. I really was at a loss as to why he might want the Soul Devourer' head.

  "What else would you hang on the wall of the clan's headquarters? Why, all the Lords will piss green with envy at such a trophy!"

  "Oh, right, of course," I relented. "Got to have the head. So, did you manage to convince her that we need it more?"

  "She'll take the brains, assuming she finds any. And she promised to make the eyes blue and shiny, like yours," the tifling got back at me for my earlier quip. "We're still arguing about the teeth, but I have a feeling the magus will see the light."

  "Very well, leave the mages and the alchemists here to burn all this filth after extracting their trophies. Gather everybody else, it's time to head in," I motioned toward the looming bulk of the castle.

  "In his day grandpa stored dozens of wine barrels the cellar," James said dreamily. "They were aged a hundred years at the time, so now they're nearly four hundred years old!"

  "Must be more vinegar than wine at this point," I teased him.

  "Vinegar my boot!" Elnar exclaimed, outraged. "The barrels are made of Edallean wood!"

  "What about the treasury, dar?" inquired Schen, who'd been quiet all this time.

  "You'll have your treasury," I assured him, then gave James a friendly clap on the shoulder. "Get everyone ready, James. Let's go have a look at your family castle."

  Chapter 12

  Looking at me from the mirror was a man with bright blue eyes, an unkempt beard and a black mane of shoulder-length hair. Tall, dark and handsome—mothers, hide your daughters, I grunted, scratching my chin. The vertical eyelids only add to the charm. The truth was that with this grill I wouldn't be able to walk the streets of Karn unmolested. At least I hadn't yet sprouted horns. But then, any betrayed spouse would kill for my horns in combat form! Thirteen inches, baby! Now, I never was particularly obsessed with size. In fact, I'd never bothered measuring any other parts of my body. Well, maybe once or twice while drunk off my rocker, but that wasn't the point. It took growing a tail and horns for me to finally break out the measuring tape. Purely for educational purposes, mind you—I wanted to know if they would keep growing. I turned away from the mirror in resignation. Let's hope the craftsmen above had already invented color contacts.

  Few people can claim to have been in a real castle. Not counting some cheesy tour with local would-be actors dressed up in traditional garb and horrid accents, but immediately after capturing it in battle. Granted, this castle was no more like its medieval counterparts than a rat-infested dump was like the executive suite of a five-star Parisian hotel.

  And sure, drawing was infinitely easier than actually building. Having said that, the artists responsible for the interior of category seven castles in Demon Grounds were top notch. I marveled at the way they had managed to relay the medieval atmosphere in the castle. Then again, looking at the ornamented fireplaces, the walls lined with portraits of Elnar's ancestors, the massive wooden furniture, the grand mirrors, miraculously unbroken, I had to admit that real medieval castles probably looked nothing like this. More likely they looked like a typical barn, and a filthy one at that.

  But this wasn't the medieval times, and when someone shells out a six-figure sum to buy or capture a castle, they had better get their money's worth. What I liked best of all in Elnar's family nest was the dining hall—a grand space that could probably fit up to two hundred people. We'd see how far off I was with my calculations at tonight's dinner. In the interval, after accepting the suit of armor from James—my reward for completing his quest—I took my leave of everyone to look for my private room, located in the guest quarters, hoping to wash off the stench that seemed to have become a part of me, and try on my shiny new present. It was a luxury I could finally afford, the sentries having been put on the walls, the castle gates closed shut, and my clanmates busy settling in after receiving all the necessary instructions. The castle's owner should have no problem handling everything else. It wasn't possible for me to move my private room to another location since the castle wasn't officially captured by me, but I was perfectly satisfied with the guest quarters. The view from the donjon's fourth story window was breathtaking. I could see the entire valley: the great bonfire blazing next to the carcass of the fallen monster, and tiny figures of alchemists buzzing all around it.

  Our victory over the castle garrison had enriched our coffers by another s
ix thousand gold and the entire contents of the treasury, which was already taken over by Schen. I wasn't anticipating any trouble from the local undead—even if a few dozens stragglers we hadn't noticed while clearing out the zone were to turn up over the next day or so, they wouldn't pose a serious threat. I just hoped that the alchemists outside the castle remained vigilant. I felt better at the sight of three bonehounds—Vaessa's summoned pets—patrolling the area around Nerghall's corpse while their mistress and her colleagues were "elbow deep in science."

  The dynamics of siege warfare in the game were actually pretty interesting. As a rule, the first official takeover of a castle by players was always the most valuable, as the victorious commander was presented with a menu of lands subject to the castle, along with the amount of points earned for capturing it. And it didn't matter whether the castle belonged to NPCs from the start or was erected by other players. The menu in question was sort of like a pricelist, giving the victor the option to use some or all of those siege points to make upgrades to the captured object or its subject territories. As far as I remembered, previously these points could be used to, say, populate the adjacent villages or hire NPC mercenaries into the castle garrison. We'd have to wait and see if those opportunities were still available, but regardless of how the Cursed Princedom's continental event would end, that is which faction would come out on top, my clan would defend this castle, which was Elnar's by right, down to the last soldier. But anyway, let's get back to business. The next item on the agenda, which was still a few hours away, was visiting Ingvar's shrine. And later in the evening there would be a festive dinner in the grand hall, along with the four hundred year old wine promised by James. I had better hurry.

  The full suit of armor was of rare quality and sapphire blue in color. Called the Medium Armor of Rage, it looked virtually identical to the four-piece set I was currently wearing. All the pieces were level 180—more evidence of the system tailoring the suit for me personally. Each piece in the set boasted 350 armor, 150 to strength and 120 to constitution, and the four-piece set bonus was 200 to strength and 25 to all resistances. Changing into the armor quickly, I pulled up the menu, lit my pipe, took a seat in the armchair and proceeded to study my updated stats.