by D. A. Adams
He hadn’t spoken orcish since escaping bondage, but as he went from shop to shop, the language came back to him like a slow rain on a dry field. He conversed with several brokers, and none remembered a tall Tredjard with a mangled ear, but because of the uniform and his effort with the language, he was treated courteously. Orcs appreciated when dignitaries from the Great Empire spoke their tongue. Most of the brokers suggested other shops to visit, and some wanted to show him new dwarves as a replacement for the one he had lost. By late afternoon he was tired from the fruitless repetition and was on the verge of calling it a day, but one orc finally remembered hearing of such a dwarf. The gangly creature made exaggerated hand motions while offering directions to where he thought Roskin had been.
“How long ago?” Crushaw asked.
“Two months, at least.”
“And this broker sold him?”
“Oh yes. A nice price, too. Your rock-brain was a fine beast.”
Crushaw choked down the urge to kill the orc and excused himself. He hurried down the streets to the shop and barely caught the broker before it closed down for the day. He went through his explanation about his servant being kidnapped while they were traveling through the conquered Ghaldeon lands.
“You can’t trust any of those rock-brains,” the orc said, nodding his understanding. “The one who brought him to me is especially sly.”
“Once I retrieve my boy, I’ll pay a visit to that villain.”
“Come, my friend. Join me for supper and we’ll discuss your property later.”
Crushaw didn’t want to eat among orcs, but he knew that once they had decided to have a meal, they would conduct no business until their bellies were full. He nodded in agreement and walked beside the orc to a restaurant near the shop. A wave of revulsion washed over him as they went inside, for the sight reminded him of his only visit inside the big house. He had been sixteen and was by far the biggest and strongest slave on that plantation. The masters were considering him for a leisure slave instead of a field hand, but they got more joy from watching Tredjards kill Tredjards than anything, so he had remained in the sugarcane. Inside the big house, he had stood in the study and listened as the masters discussed his fate like they might a prize hog. The luxury and comfort of the study had dazzled him, and that taste of life beyond the field spawned the need to escape. From that day, it had been his obsession.
The restaurant had similar luxury, with thick mahogany tables and high-backed chairs. Linen tablecloths and dwarven silver adorned the tables, and oil canvasses of long dead human and orc slave traders covered the walls. Orcs sat three and four to a table and discussed the day’s business and local politics, and the orc with Crushaw joined a table of three. It introduced the pseudo-general to the others and took a seat. Crushaw made eye contact with them and quickly studied the room before sitting himself.
“What do you think of our little town?” the nearest orc asked before taking a sip of its brown soup.
“Quite a place,” Crushaw said, keeping his left hand on the hilt of his sword, just in case.
“Our nations do good business here, your Excellency,” the orc directly across from him said. “Who knew rock-brains and wood-heads could be so valuable?”
“Here, here.” The others orcs agreed, toasting the question.
“What’s your name, General?”
“In Black Rock, I am known as Crushaw, General of the Northern Plains, Bane of Ogres.”
“I’ve heard of you, your Excellency. You defeated the Glilglock Clan with only two regiments.”
“It’s an honor to meet such a dignified leader of the Great Empire.”
“What leads you to this end of your empire? Are the ogre wars over?”
“For me, yes.”
“Now, now, General, you can tell these boys your business here. They are my friends.”
Crushaw retold the lie about Roskin, and two of the others remembered the dwarf. They congratulated the other orc on its profit on the transaction.
“Right place, right time, boys. But it seems my profits are ill-gotten. The rock-brain that sold him to me will have to pay for that treachery.”
“Leave him to me,” Crushaw said. “His crimes are against Emperor Vassa, may she reign eternally.”
“Of course, General. Now, let’s enjoy some supper.”
After living with Kwarck and eating the healthiest foods of the finest quality, Crushaw didn’t think he could eat the brown soup of some dreary meat and lumpy broth. But he couldn’t offend his hosts for fear of losing Roskin’s trail, so he imagined himself back in the slave-house kneeling at the food trough. Whenever he had to do anything unpleasant, like torturing an ogre for information or pulling an arrow from a soldier, he thought about the slop, leftovers from the big house mashed together in a barrel, usually with bugs mixed in. Compared to those meals, the soup was rather enjoyable.
After supper, his hosts moved from the dining area into a back room where other orcs sipped expensive liquors from fine glasses. The room was filled with plush sofas and cushioned chairs, and a chamber orchestra played soft music just below the din of conversation. In his travels to Vassa’s palace, he had been to similar gatherings, the back rooms of exclusive restaurants where the real business of a nation is conducted. While his soldiers bled and died on the field, well-born aristocrats divvied up the lands that they had not even conquered yet.
After his one trip to the big house, he began to study the plantation. On those lands, no soldiers were stationed nearby, and the slaves were barely watched at all. The overseers ruled through fear and perpetual crushing of spirits. Most of his fellow slaves were like him, born into bondage with little sense of their kin, and it was forbidden for them to learn any reading or writing or math, and any caught teaching a slave was killed without question. But there were a handful of elves who secretly taught any that were willing to learn, and from the elves, Crushaw had learned during the night to speak the common tongue and some elfish. He had also learned to crudely read and write orcish, elfish, and common.
Because the orcs believed elves and dwarves to be inferior beings, they let the slaves guard themselves, and outside of the teaching elves and a few newly caught dwarves, most of the slaves were so deeply ingrained with self-loathing that they willingly embraced bondage. Many times, Crushaw had seen escape plans or revolts undone by a snitch among the slaves, so as he made his own plans, he told no one.
“I sold your rock-brain to the Slithsythe Plantation for 5,000 gold pieces,” the orc said. “To get him back, you’ll have to offer some compensation. I’ve already invested that money in other slaves, so it would be impossible for me to retrieve it.”
“That’s a lot of gold,” Crushaw said, feigning concern. He had no intention of bartering for his friend.
“I wish I could help. I feel awful that I’ve made so much for an illegal transaction.”
“Yeah, but not bad enough to relinquish the gold,” one of the other orcs chided.
“As I said, it’s already invested.”
“Think nothing of that,” Crushaw said. “My emperor will pay any price. She is both wise and just.”
“To Emperor Vassa,” the orcs toasted.
Crushaw had no glass, so he couldn’t join the toast. He was ready to leave this place and be away from these creatures, but he still needed directions. The orcs sensed his discomfort and called for a gray and bent dwarf who shuffled to them.
“Bring our friend a drink, you old slug.”
“Of course, masters,” the dwarf returned in very poor orcish. “What would master like?”
“Just water,” Crushaw answered. The old dwarf nodded and shuffled away.
“Once they’re old like that,” an orc from another group said. “They’re hard to motivate.”
“So true,” one of Crushaw’s party replied. “Old, they are basically worthless.”
Crushaw’s temper began to rise, and he had to grit his teeth. These beasts that had never done an honest
day’s work couldn’t understand the toll of the fields. He remembered how the older slaves struggled to rise in the mornings, how their joints and backs constantly ached, how their spirits were broken.
When the old slave returned with the water, Crushaw tried to make eye contact with him, wanting to let him know that he wasn’t one of them, but the slave kept his eyes towards the ground, waiting for the orcs to excuse him.
“Did you ever fight against the rock-brains or wood-heads, General?”
“Only ogres. The dwarves were two far west for my army, and the elves were beaten well before my day.”
“Tell us a story from the front, your Excellency.”
Crushaw thought for a minute, trying to remember a specific tale that might amuse his hosts. He could remember images and pieces of battles, but he couldn’t think of a full story, so instead, he told about torturing an especially tough ogre. The beast had endured four days of Crushaw’s worst wrath, and while its body was broken beyond repair, it wouldn’t give up any information.
“This thing was tougher than any man or beast I’ve ever known, but it knew where its army was dug in, and I had to get that out of it. Every bone in its arms and legs were broken, and it was blind in both eyes, so my last real option was to skin it.”
The orcs gasped and make gagging noises.
“That beast didn’t break until the skin was gone from both legs and most of its back. It was almost a shame that its will broke before it died a few minutes later, but I was glad to have the location.”
The entire room was silent, and every orc was staring at him. Crushaw drained his water and swallowed with a loud gasp.
“Well, General, let’s retire from this place,” the orc that had sold Roskin said, breaking the silence. “I won’t let you sleep anywhere but my house tonight.”
After saying farewell to its companions, the orc led him out the back door, and they wound through a series of side streets until they reached a two-story house from the elfin days. The walkway in front was paved with basalt from Sturdeon and lined with holly bushes. Large windows with finely crafted shutters faced the main street, and the front door was carved with images of elves hunting in the forest. Once inside, Crushaw felt the age of house from the smells of the wooden foundation and the wear on the floors and doors. By his best estimation, the house was at least four hundred years old.
“It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” the orc asked.
“Very nice.”
“I’ll give the wood-heads this much: they are fine craftsmen.”
The orc introduced Crushaw to its family, a wife and three young orcs. The wife was shy and timid, barely speaking above a whisper as she said hello, but the young ones were loud and rowdy as they played hide and seek. Crushaw remembered how the orc children used to play in the fields while the slaves worked. Many times he had wanted to hack one to pieces with his machete as it danced and pranced around him while he sweated in the blistering heat.
“Do you have any young ones, General?” the orc asked.
Crushaw shrugged.
“They are a joy.”
The man and orc retired to the orc’s study, where papers were scattered on the desk and floor. The orc apologized for the mess as it cleared a place for Crushaw to sit. When both were settled, the orc produced a bottle of dark liquor from its desk. It pulled the cork and took a long draw before offering the bottle to Crushaw.
“No thank you,” the old man said, studying a set of weapons mounted on the wall. There were several deadly looking knives and two well-crafted throwing axes.
“I admire your will, General. Few can stay away from a drink. That shows your strength.”
“I’m just curious,” Crushaw said, changing the subject quickly. He had little desire to discuss his problems with an orc. “How many slaves do you sell every month?”
“Well, it varies.”
“Of course.”
“On average, I’d say fifty or so.”
“Do you ever sell whole families?”
“Goodness no. Never.”
“Why is that?”
“The same reason we don’t teach them to read and write. If you give a slave a parent or a brother to bond with, they don’t work as hard. If you let them read, before you know it they have their heads full of ideas they don’t really comprehend. It’s best to keep a slave dumb and lonely and fearful of the lash.”
“In war, my men always feared me, and loneliness was part of the job,” Crushaw said, his eyes distant and his voice soft.
“General, there are those of us who are born to lead and rule, and then there are the other ninety percent who have neither the brains nor the conviction to care for themselves.”
“My soldiers were little better than slaves.”
“You are one of us, one of the nobles. Your men followed because you led. Had it not been you, they would’ve followed another.”
Crushaw looked at the orc as if seeing it for the first time. The creature’s eyes were dark and detached, and its expression was that of one who had never thought about more than commerce and wealth, a heartless expression that sickened the old man. Crushaw wanted to draw his blade and behead the monster where it sat.
The day he had escaped the plantation the weather had been lousy for weeks, and the fields were streaked with gullies, and much of the crop had been washed away. He had been twenty years old, and after four years of studying the overseers and his fellow slaves, he had realized that all he needed to do to escape was slip out of the slave quarters in the middle of the night. If no one saw or heard him, he could have a head start of several hours because the overseers slept through the night until two hours before sunrise. He had learned enough from the elves to know that he needed to travel north across difficult terrain, but in his mind, even death in the wilds was preferable to another day in bondage.
He had wanted to say goodbye to some of the elves and dwarves, but he didn’t trust anyone. His plan was simple and crude, but it hinged on secrecy. Without his head start, he would be tracked down before reaching the wilds, which were at least twenty miles away. Once he reached those lands, the orcs wouldn’t pursue him too deeply, so he needed as much distance between himself and the dogs as possible.
He had waited until two hours after dark, which had come early because of the thick, low clouds that dropped sheets of rain, and he had used the noise of the rain on the metal roof of the slave quarters to hide the creak of the door. Once outside, he had plodded through the ankle deep mud until he was at the edge of the farthest field. When he had reached that point, he had only paused for a moment from a feeling of doubt that ran through him like a cold shiver, but he had quickly regained his resolve and crossed over the fence to the grasslands that separated the plantation from the wilds.
He had marched all night, the hammering rain stinging his arms and face as he moved. When he had reached the wilds, he hadn’t hesitated at all. Instead, he had quickened his pace as the soft grasses and sloppy mud gave way to heavy, coarse sand and the rain tapered off to a drizzle, then nothing.
“To reach the Slithsythe Plantation, you have to travel the Crimson Road across the wilds. There are several oases along the way, so you don’t have to worry about water.”
“How far?”
“It will take a few days to get across the wilds, then maybe a week to the plantation. Don’t stray from the road, though. The wilds will claim you.”
“I have heard,” Crushaw said, unable to stifle his smile.
He had made it across them. It had taken two weeks, and he had fought many strange beasts along the way, but he had made it. Once he had gotten into the lands of the Great Empire, he had been safe because orcs could not recapture human slaves there. Dwarves and elves were caught and returned on the rare occasions they escaped, but if humans could make it into the empire, they were safe.
“When you clear the wilds, the Crimson Road forks. Stay to the east, and you will reach the plantation.”
“Good. I wil
l leave first thing tomorrow.”
“Again, I am sorry for this situation. I pride myself as an honest broker.”
“Your help and hospitality will be rewarded by the emperor, may her health stay strong.”
“Here, here.”
Crushaw explained that he was tired from his travels and was ready for bed. The orc led him from the study to a bedroom on the second floor. The old man didn’t like being upstairs, but it would have to do. The orc showed him the washroom and a linen closet, and Crushaw cleaned the grime from his bare skin before retiring to the bedroom.
He had no wish to sleep in that house, so he sat in a chair by the window and waited for the orcs to go to bed themselves. As he waited, he thought about killing the broker and its family before he left. The beast deserved to have its throat slit for selling his friend, but he knew that if he killed them, a dispatch of soldiers would chase him across the wilds. He and his companions would already be vastly outnumbered at the plantation, so he resisted the temptation and let the orc and its family live.
Once the orcs were asleep, he returned to the study and removed the knives and axes from the wall. Since he would be facing superior numbers, he wanted more than one sword at his disposal. From the markings on the blades and handles, he knew that the knives had been crafted by elves and were extremely old. The axes were Tredjard and had been forged within Crushaw’s lifetime. He was glad to liberate such fine weapons from the possession of an orc.
Once he had the weapons secured in a leather sack, he quietly slipped out the front door and, from the stars, made his way back to where Molgheon and Vishghu waited. As he neared the campsite, he called like an owl to let them know that he was alone, but Molgheon still had her bow trained on him when he came into their sight.
“Took you long enough,” she said, replacing the arrow in her quiver.
“It wasn’t fun. Get packed.”
“We already are,” Vishghu returned.
“Good. We’ll travel all night to get away from this cursed place.” He placed the sack with the weapons in the back of the wagon.
“Any trouble?” Molgheon asked, climbing into the wagon.