Bloodraven

by Nunn, PL

  Bloodraven put a hand on her thick neck and told her, probably as he’d instructed Yhalen, to behave. She looked up at him with intent brown eyes, considering the command.

  Yhalen hurried to keep up when Bloodraven started off again, wanting very much to ask once more what sort of welcome they might expect. Wanting assurances that Bloodraven had yet to give that they would not be met with hostility and slow death. He wanted that knife back badly, no matter that against a full-blooded ogre it was next to useless in his hands. His other talents weren’t reliable. Aside from which, he still shivered at the thought of intentionally using them against reasoning beings.

  Soon enough they reached a break in the forest. Beyond that was a stretch of flat earth that bled into a wall of rocky cliffs dotted with the dark openings of caves. Yhalen saw the ogres before he saw the lower camp. Dozens of large figures going about their daily business at the foot of the cliff, only looking up as Vorja barked at a group of smaller camp dogs.

  Eyes swung their way and big bodies tensed, uncertain of who approached. When they saw Bloodraven and Yhalen they relaxed, not especially threatened by the sight of one halfling and a staggering human slave. There was more chance of animosity from the dogs, which were growling and barking at Vorja’s casual approach. She would take them down if they tried her, Yhalen felt certain, for they were half her size and underfed. Bloodraven snapped at her and she held back, her ears twitching as she growled low in her throat.

  Other ogres began drifting out from beyond an outcropping of rocky cliff and Yhalen saw the edges of tents sheltered in what might be a very large canyon beyond that outcropping. Large enough to hold what Bloodraven claimed to be the strongest clan in the northern reaches.

  Warriors came out to meet them, and grunted surprise when they were close enough to recognize Bloodraven. The gathering grew—a forest of towering, armed bodies that crowded about them.

  Yhalen’s hands were white knuckled, fisted about the straps of the packs as his breathing went harsh and rapid. Stay close to Bloodraven, instinct screamed. Stay near his one source of protection amidst these ruthless people.

  But he hadn’t the weight or the strength to resist the bodies that shoved him aside in their efforts to bark questions at their long lost son. He fell once, under the impact of a hip against his shoulder and scrambled back to avoid being trampled underfoot. He gained his feet, and stood there with the packs on the ground next to him, trying to control the fear that curled in his gut. They would smell it, they would descend upon him if they knew how deeply afraid he was of them. No matter if he had all of Elvardo’s dark powers, he’d still tremble in the midst of true ogres, having been broken thoroughly by their kind upon his first encounter.

  The gathering began to shift towards the cliffs, heading down a well-trodden path towards the sheltered canyon. Yhalen was forgotten, with even Bloodraven not bothering to look back towards him.

  Vorja had disappeared to prove her dominance over the clan pack. Yhalen wondered—if he simply melted into the woods, might they forget he’d ever been there? It was a tempting thought, but he doubted good would come of it. So he took a great breath, forcing some semblance of calm, then shouldered the packs and followed along in Bloodraven’s wake.

  The closer he got to the cliffs, the more details he began to notice. Narrow paths had been hacked out of the cliff face, leading to each of the cave openings. Most of the caves had strings of beads or bone hanging at their mouths. Some had crude symbols etched into the stone surrounding the caves.

  There were a great many of them, and they seemed natural rather than hand-hewn, which made him curious as to how deep they ran within the foundation of the cliffs.

  A child ran towards him, large and lumbering, and he froze, recalling all too vividly the cruelty of the children of the previous ogre clan. But this one was more interested in finding out what the commotion was and pounded past him towards the canyon. Around the bend of path, protected by a relatively narrow mouth made up by two outcropped wings of cliff, was a wide gorge that might have ran a thousand feet into the depths of the mountain.

  There were tents of all sizes along the walls, as well as pens in which animals were kept, and multiple large fire pits over which food was in various stages of cooking. The rare crudely constructed wood structure, alongside tents for smithies and leatherwork—with human slaves helping with the skinning and tanning—were outside behind the main tents. There were open spaces where warriors sparred and children gathered to watch. It was a teeming community of ogres, hundreds and hundreds of them. And all of them were slowly turning their attention to the arrival of a halfling war leader that they had most likely thought dead.

  Yhalen edged along, against the border of tents where the chance of getting trampled at the outskirts of the gathering crowd was less likely. He had lost sight of Bloodraven altogether, the halfling swallowed up in the sea of taller figures. He caught sight of other ogr’rons hanging around the edges of the crowd, yet not cowering in the dark spaces beyond it like the human slaves did, their tasks momentarily forgotten in the face of this disturbance.

  There was a stilling of the gathering as broad faces turned towards the cliffs. A crudely carved set of steps led upwards to a particularly large cave mouth, decorated with hanging strips of dyed leather and hundreds of dangling beads and bone. A massive figure had emerged, tattooed and scarred, with rings of gold from the tip of his tapered ears to the fleshy lobe. There were strands of silver in his black hair, but nothing in the solid build of his body suggested that this ogre was anything less than physically hale. He stood for a moment, surveying the crowd below, while several ogre warriors barked up explanations—perhaps as to why the clan was in such agitation.

  When he moved down the steps towards the place where Yhalen judged Bloodraven to be, ogres moved out of his path respectfully. This ogre was most probably the clan warlord. What had Bloodraven called him? Wartooth. Wartooth, who was a blood relation to Bloodraven’s rival and Yhalen’s personal nightmare, Deathclaw.

  The crowd shifted enough that Yhalen got a glance of Bloodraven, standing unharmed and straight before the approaching warlord. For a moment, Wartooth stood, staring down at the halfling two heads shorter than himself. Then his arm swung out, a backhanded blow with a closed fist that rocked Bloodraven back on his heels. Bloodraven kept his feet and shook his head to shake off whatever pain he felt. He straightened, shoulders going back, amidst the awakening noise of a crowd scenting blood.

  Yhalen shivered as dread settled in close behind the fear in his gut. It was a familiar fear of late that all Bloodraven’s plans would be torn asunder by the uncompromising ferocity of his people, but no easier to deal with for its familiarity.

  Bloodraven took another blow to the other cheek, and he staggered back a step, blood beginning to trail down from the side of his mouth. A dozen ogre voices were bellowing to be heard above the crowd. A warrior with a great deal of silver in his braided hair stepped to Bloodraven’s side, speaking loudly to the warlord. Yhalen thought he might have seen the grey-haired ogre before. Perhaps in Bloodraven’s little raiding party.

  A hand grasped his arm and he hissed, twisting about in a panic. But they were only human fingers and easily shaken off. He stared with wide-eyed breathlessness at a raw-boned human face, thin with malnutrition. Adorned with a dirty beard and roughly hacked blonde hair. He knew this face too, and was shocked to see it. He had assumed Vorjd was long dead.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Vorjd said.

  His voice was hoarse and heavily accented, and his pale blue eyes widened as an outcry surged up amongst the gathering. Dozens of ogre eyes turned their way. Arms lifted and fingers stabbed towards the two humans—towards Yhalen, since Vorjd had shrunk backwards into the shadow of the tents.

  Bloodraven raised his voice for the first time since Wartooth had confronted him, barking rapid ogre words that Yhalen had no hope of comprehending. He made a move forward, but was stopped as the edges of the ogre cro
wd began surging towards him.

  He stood frozen in his tracks, terror befuddling thought and reflex. A hand with fingers the size of an infant’s arm grasped his elbow, wrenching him off his feet. He caught a flash of a twisted green face—sharp yellowed teeth and eyes filled with bloodlust—before another huge hand grasped his other arm in an attempt to yank him away. Something wrenched in his shoulder and he screamed, a rag doll stretched between two monsters with yet more bearing down upon him.

  A harsh voice bellowed something, and the mob stilled, snarling and agitated. Another bellowed command and the ogres fighting over Yhalen dropped him reluctantly as they turned to look at their warlord, who was barking short commands to the crowd. Wartooth finished and turned, began to climb the stairs. The most decorated of the crowd separated to follow him, Bloodraven in their midst.

  He hesitated only once, speaking a word or two to the silver-haired ogre that had come to his defense—then, without a glance at Yhalen, he continued following in the warlord’s footsteps.

  Yhalen pushed himself up from where he’d sprawled. His shoulder radiated pain, and he wanted very much to crawl back into the shadows where Vorjd had fled. Wanted to escape the malicious stares of the still milling ogre crowd. A young, half-grown male sidled closer, the look in his eyes promising some sort of subtle abuse, but a larger form intervened and Yhalen caught his breath. It was an involuntary sound of fear, escaping him without notice as a towering form moved to stand over him.

  The grey-haired warrior who Bloodraven had spoken with. He stood looking down, broad face impassive, then lifted his eyes and spoke softly towards the shadows behind the tents. Tentatively Vorjd crept out. The warrior said a few more words, then turned and strode away, heading towards the steps that led to the warlord’s cave.

  Vorjd moved towards Yhalen, and Yhalen flinched when he laid fingers tentatively on his shoulder, urging him up. Yhalen ground his teeth as he tried to move, wincing as the shoulder shifted as though dislocated.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “Council,” Vorjd said shortly.

  Vorjd got an arm under his good shoulder and steered Yhalen deeper into the gorge, into crowds of milling ogre clansmen who glared suspiciously at his passing. Angry mutterings followed in his wake, and no few of them spat at him. Both he and Vorjd were trembling badly by the time Vorjd led him to one of many narrow paths leading up into the cliffs. They passed a great many cave mouths until they came to the one that Vorjd led him into. It was relatively shallow—not much longer than an average ogre was tall, and though the ceiling was high enough for Yhalen and Vorjd to walk under comfortably, Bloodraven would have had to stoop a bit.

  Vorjd helped him down onto a pile of dusty smelling furs. The cave held little else, other than the furs, but the walls had been decorated here and there with carvings or painted designs. One deeply etched symbol in particular caught his eye. The same symbol that Vorja had branded into her flank and Yhalen had on the small of his back. Bloodraven’s mark.

  “This is his—home?” he asked softly, as Vorjd’s fingers gently probed his aching shoulder.

  “Unn,” the slave grunted in answer. “Lie down, on your back.”

  Yhalen glanced up at him warily and the man pushed on his chest to urge him down. “To pull your shoulder back in place.”

  Goddess. It would hurt, but it needed doing if the shoulder was indeed out of joint. He lay back on the stone floor and clenched his teeth as Vorjd put a foot on his chest, then with one solid wrench popped the shoulder into place. Yhalen shut his eyes and let the shower of lights fade along with the brilliant burst of pain before attempting to move.

  “You seem—rather good at that,” he commented, as he tentatively rubbed the sore shoulder.

  Vorjd shrugged. “They forget sometimes, how strong they are—or perhaps not. A common injury among us.”

  Yhalen sat up, staring at the man in dismay. At the casual way he spoke of the abuse of his fellow enslaved humans.

  “Why are you here?” he whispered. “Why didn’t you run when you had the chance? They would have sheltered you, the people of the south.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Vorjd’s pale eyes bored into him and he flinched, hardly knowing the answer to that himself. “He’s alive, you know. Deathclaw. And he came home with tales of your black magic.”

  Yhalen clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from clattering. Goddess, but he’d hoped that that particular misuse of magic had been a fatal one. He’d wished, maliciously, in the deepest part of him that Deathclaw had died from his hand. Bloodraven had hoped for it. The reaction of the crowd began to make sense, if word had spread here of the sorcerous human that Bloodraven had taken as slave.

  “What will happen?” he asked softly.

  Vorjd eyed him warily, and shrugged. “How should I know? The warlord and the ancients will decide.”

  Bloodraven hadn’t expected a kind reception upon his return, not after having failed at his mission and lost half or more of his war party. He expected disdain and punishment. He could deal with that, he could withstand the physical retaliation. He could talk his way around most of the ogres who needed to be talked around, even Wartooth if need be, if the warlord wasn’t in a blind rage. He had not expected to come back and be accused of wielding dark magicks upon his people.

  His first thought was that they had heard word of the troll attack that Yhalen had precipitated upon the lower mountain clan—it was hard to tell among all the accusations and mutterings of the gathered clansmen. But then he heard mentions of dark magicks and betrayals and the names of slain ogres that he personally knew, that he personally had led into the southlands not so long ago, and he began to suspect trouble of a different sort.

  That Icehand had survived to return home and stood up for his innocence in the face of those accusations was a relief. That someone identified Yhalen as the root at the source of those accusations was not. When they went after him in a blind surge of superstitious rage, Bloodraven had feared the worst. Had fought against the surge of the mob in a vain effort to reach his human before they ripped him apart and had failed, held back by a sea of bodies larger and stronger than his own.

  It had been Wartooth who had stopped it, in a rare show of restraint. A word from the wizened old shaman who’d stood at his back, observing the whole affair, had stopped what Bloodraven couldn’t.

  Bloodraven didn’t quite know whether to be thankful to Wrathbone or not, the old shaman and himself having never been on particularly friendly terms. Mostly that was due to the fact that Bloodraven had never quaked under the thrall of the old ogre’s superstitious warnings and chilling fireside tales. At least not as much as the other young ogres.

  They proceeded up steps hewn out of the cliffs long before the ancestors of this clan had claimed the area as their own. The warlord’s cave was burrowed into the foundation of the cliffs, the largest of all the dens. It was a collection of chambers—some too small for ogre bodies, others large enough to fit twenty. The clan council gathered in the largest of the cavernous dens. It was a room long used for such purpose. As such, its walls were carved and painted with symbols and crude representations of the mountain spirits, of warlords past and present, and of pictorial depictions of legendary ogre conflicts.

  Since his people had no written language it was up to the shamans to utilize their artistic talents, as well as their imaginative tale telling, to pass down the history of the clan.

  There was a natural chimney in the gathering chamber, a narrow channel that wove through the rock on the wall facing the cliff front. It let in a tiny trickle of light as well as letting smoke from the torches placed in wall-mounted brackets, escape. There was a shallow crater in the center of the floor where the shamans burned ritual herbs for protection or guidance from the spirits. Or more likely, Bloodraven thought, for their own gratification, as no few of the herbs they collected and dried had hallucinatory effects. The clan shamans were often to be found sitting in a cloud of smoke for
hours, rocking back in forth in apparent communion with the spirits that they claimed spoke through them.

  There were several thick pelts padding the floor to one side of the crater. Wartooth settled on the central one, while Wrathbone—the eldest of the clan shamans—sat down at his side. His movements were slow and stiff, as one might expect of an ogre so ancient. The rest of them sat on the bare stone in the circle around the pit. As the ogre in contention, Bloodraven took the space directly opposite Wartooth.

  The ogres here were the most fearsome of the clan, the most respected war leaders under Wartooth’s command. Few of them held sympathy for him, a halfling upstart. Many were blood relations to Deathclaw, springing from Wartooth’s own line. He had an ally in Icehand, who had settled at his side and whose witness of events in the South might or might not work in his favor, depending on the depth of Icehand’s own superstitions. It was all a matter of what Icehand and the other surviving members of his war party had witnessed, and whether or not they’d been present when Yhalen had used his magicks on Deathclaw. And even then, they might not have perceived what the human was about. The ogre shamans’ practice of spirit magic was full of chants of orchestration, and Bloodraven knew very well that whatever power Yhalen summoned, he did quietly and without benefit of theatrics.

  The accusations began and he sat and listened quietly. He had led his war party into disaster. He had conspired with humans and human sorcerers against the people. He had lain with the human witch that had cursed his fellows and perhaps that same witch had worked his dark human magicks upon him and twisted his mind. There were a dozen theories, some far-fetched, some hitting closer to home than he felt comfortable with. He silently listened to them all, until Wartooth held up a hand and silenced the council.

  “Speak, Bloodraven.”

  Bloodraven let his eyes move around the circle, before returning his gaze to Wartooth and inclining his head respectfully. “It was no conspiracy or human magic that led us into ruin in the southland. It was bloodlust and stupidity on the part of warriors too concerned with spilling human blood to practice restraint or stealth.”