by D. A. Adams
“I’ve never seen such courage,” Vishghu said.
“Poor thing,” Molgheon said, stroking his hair. “Just a few seconds more…”
Several of the freed slaves gathered around the three, and silence fell over the battlefield. Even the wounded were quiet.
“He killed so many,” the dwarf with crazy eyes said, looking towards the big house.
“In my childhood,” an elf began. “We heard tales of such valor, but I thought it had fled this world.”
“Help me carry him,” Molgheon said, standing.
Vishghu moved to his feet and knelt to lift his legs. When she grabbed hold of his ankles, he called out in pain, and the crowd all jumped back in shock.
“It’s broke,” he called out.
“You!” Molgheon shouted, kneeling back at his head. “We thought you were dead.”
“How could any survive such a thing?” crazy eyes asked.
“I saw him get struck a dozen times,” another dwarf said.
“He’s invincible,” an elf called from the back. “He cannot die in battle.”
The freed slaves broke into a loud cheer. Molgheon and Vishghu helped him to stand, and he held the ogre’s shoulder, keeping weight off that ankle. He found his sword on the ground and asked Crazy Eyes to hand it to him.
“My Lord,” the dwarf replied, kneeling and holding up the sword. “My life is yours to command.”
“Nonsense,” Crushaw said, taking his weapon. “To your feet.”
The dwarf rose, and Crushaw, waving with his sword and clinging to the ogre, called for everyone’s attention. The freed slaves stopped their activity and looked at him.
“You have fought well today, my brothers. From your courage, you are now and forever free people,” Crushaw bellowed, his voice like thunder through a valley. “Once we are safe from these lands, you may return to whatever place you call home. None of you owes me service. I am no one’s lord, and you are no one’s serf.”
Again the crowd roared, and Crushaw motioned for them to resume their tasks at hand, all except Crazy Eyes who he asked to help carry him.
“We need to secure the big house,” he said to Molgheon. “Gather some good warriors and search it. Only kill them if you have to.”
“It’s done,” Molgheon said before trotting away.
“Help me to a seat and then you’ll need to organize units to secure the perimeter. We can’t let any more orcs or slaves wander away. The ones that have already fled will bring reinforcements.”
They moved as swiftly as his leg would allow to the wrap-around porch. Once Crushaw was seated, the other two hurried back to the battlefield to create sentry units from the remaining healthy ones. In his adventures across the wilds and through all of his battles, Crushaw had never broken more than a finger, so he was surprised by how much his ankle hurt. As he sat pondering what to do first for it, a tall and slender elf approached from the battlefield, his wispy hair whipping about in the wind.
“My lord, I come from a long line of healers. Lord Molgheon said I might be of assistance to you.”
“Dear friend,” Crushaw said slowly in very rough Koorleine. “Don’t call me ‘Lord.’ We are brothers.”
“You speak my language!” the elf exclaimed, kneeling at Crushaw’s bad ankle.
“I was raised among your kin.”
The elf removed the boot from the purple and swollen joint, and Crushaw gritted his teeth and clenched his fists from the jolt of pain that shot through his leg. The elf explained that the leg would take at least two months to heal, but otherwise the break was clean. He found a small stick and told Crushaw to bite it. Then, the slender man took hold of the warrior’s leg and in one second caused him more pain than he had felt since escaping slavery.
Chapter 14
A General Leads
Roskin awoke long after the din of battle had faded. To him, the day had been a dream, a distant hope of freedom he had concocted from pain, for he had slept through Vishghu freeing the leisure slaves and leading them into the orc battalion. He had drifted in and out all day, and now, as evening took hold of the plantation and as he overcame his grogginess, he began to realize that something had really happened. Gingerly, he got to his feet and slowly walked out of the building. In front of him, the door to the cage lay on the hard earth, its hinges twisted beyond usefulness.
He was alone, and a strange sensation washed over him, a discombobulating realization that the world he had come to accept as his fate had been suddenly and irreversibly changed. The plantation was alive with cheerful noises, and while the sound was somewhat welcome, the transformation was too bizarre for him to enjoy. As he scanned the fuzzy horizon, part of him wanted to make another run for the tall grasses, but the pain on his back and fear of more lashes held him still.
He leaned against the bars and let the cool metal press against his hot face as his back throbbed incessantly. He wanted nothing more than to be back with his mother on that branch high above the forest floor. The orcs had hurt him bad, and where once he had carried a spirited song, there was now only a deep sense of sorrow and fear. He called for her again but was too tired, and only a faint whisper would escape his lips. He closed his eyes and envisioned a new home, a cross between the elf tree houses and the tunnels of Dorkhun.
“Son of Kraganere,” Vishghu’s voice came to him. She was standing in the doorway that was much too small for her. “The ogres are now and forever at your service.”
Surprised at hearing her voice and thinking it another dream, Roskin mumbled back his gratitude.
“Come out here, and I’ll get you to the healers,” she continued.
“I can’t,” he returned. “They’ll see me.”
“They’re beaten.”
“It’s a cruel dream.”
“Crushaw captured the house. You should’ve seen him.”
“I saw my mother. She was beautiful.”
Vishghu called to the patrol that was searching the southern perimeter, and the dwarves came to her, their voices full of laughter and their steps quick and easy. Vishghu asked them to help Roskin out of the cage. Two of them entered and got on either side of him.
“Come, Lord of Dorkhun,” an aged Ghaldeon said softly. “Let’s leave this filthy place.”
“Not the lash!”
“No, that lash won’t touch you again.”
They took his arms and led him to the doorway. Once he was outside, he was lifted gently by Vishghu and carried to the big house. Near the porch, the orc prisoners were tied together and secured to the wooden railing, where they were guarded by several well-armed freed peoples. On the porch, the seriously wounded waited for treatment, and inside, the lower level rooms were filled with the critically wounded and the elfish healers who tended to them with ointments and salves much like the ones Torkdohn had given to Roskin.
Vishghu carried him into a parlor filled with plush sofas and thick rugs. She laid him face down on an empty sofa and called for a healer. The elf finished tending to a human with a terrible gash across her stomach and moved to the dwarf and ogre.
“This one needs attention,” Vishghu said.
“We’ll get to him in time,” the healer said, motioning around the room with his hand.
“This one needs attention, now,” she said, her voice more harsh than she had intended.
“Like I said…”
“That’s not good enough.” Her voice became nearly a growl. “This dwarf is why you are free. Tend to him next.”
Huffing his displeasure, the elf looked at Roskin’s back and searched through a small pouch for a powerful salve. He gently rubbed it into the deep gashes, and as he did, Roskin clenched his fists and called out in agony. Once the healer was finished, he handed the rest of the salve to Vishghu and told her to reapply it every hour until it was gone.
The ogre did as she was told and stayed with Roskin all through that evening and night. The dwarf slept most of the time, only waking to ask for water or whimper for help
, but when he finally awoke before sunrise the next morning, he was refreshed. The gashes on his back, while not healed, had mostly scabbed over and didn’t hurt anything like the previous day. And his mood, while not as light-hearted as the other freed slaves, was not as dark and cheerless as before. He sat up from the sofa, scanning the room and wondering aloud where he was. In the floor beside him, Vishghu slept soundly.
“Rest easy, Heir of Dorkhun,” the elf who had given the salve said softly. “You’re among friends.”
“What’s happened?” Roskin returned, moving beside the healer.
The elf told the story, describing how Crushaw had killed nearly a hundred orcs and held off twice as many, even with a broken ankle. He explained that the orcs’ blades merely bounced off the general’s body like feathers and that now he was organizing the freed slaves to march away from the plantation to safety. The dwarf listened intently, wondering if he were still dreaming or maybe even mad from the torture.
When the story was finished, he excused himself and searched the house for breakfast. In every room, the wounded lay quietly, still sleeping and being watched by healers. As he saw the many injured, some permanently disfigured or maimed, he was ashamed of his cowardice from the lash. They had risked death for their freedom while he had curled into a ball and cried for mercy. How could he ever again call himself a leader when he had embraced such fear and weakness? Surely none of these brave warriors would follow him, and he would never outlive the shame. It would follow him back to Dorkhun and corrode his throne.
Finally, he found the kitchen and prepared his own breakfast. He hadn’t eaten a decent meal in many weeks, and his stomach burned with hunger. As he cooked, he became afraid of seeing Crushaw and the others, afraid that they would see his cowardice and regret having risked so much for one so unworthy. They had come to rescue the dwarf they had seen against the soldiers from Murkdolm, but that dwarf had died on the outskirts of Black Rock.
“Good morning, tall one,” the crazy-eyed dwarf said, sitting beside Roskin at the servants’ table to the side of the kitchen. “You look much better.”
“Thanks.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you’re a future king?”
Roskin shrugged, chewing his eggs. The eastern horizon was lightening to purple with a thin wisp of pink.
“That was quite a shock. Many times we Tredjards have said that our northern cousins are the smartest of us all. Maybe one day I’ll get to see your palace at Dorkhun.”
“Maybe. What’s your name?”
“Before they took me, I was Leinjar of the Second Infantry. In that cage, we had no names. Maybe I’ll rename myself something proud.”
“I should change mine, too.”
“Roskin is good. Your name fits.”
Roskin snorted in disgust.
“What’s that,” Leinjar said, furrowing his brow.
“I’m disgraced.”
“That’s crazy talk, tall one. Few have taken it as well. I told them every secret I’d ever known.”
“They broke me. Just leave me to that shame.”
“You were hurt, sure, and you cried out like we all do, but they didn’t beat you.”
Leinjar explained, his eyes growing wider and crazier as he spoke, how Roskin had been calling out for mercy but suddenly had gone silent. The leisure slaves had thought he had died from the pain, but after a few minutes, it had become clear that he had found some way to endure it. He had been alert and focused the whole time, and with each blow that didn’t extract any sound, the overseer had become more and more enraged. Between the blows it had asked the dwarf if he had had enough, but Roskin had not answered once. Finally, the overseer had stopped from sheer exhaustion, and all of the slaves had been silently nudging each other in awe of Roskin’s toughness.
“That’s why we forgave you for killing Sweeger.”
“But in my heart, defiance was gone.”
“Maybe later on, when you were alone at night. It’s easy to feel beaten in the dark when you’re hurting. On the post, you made us remember that we are dwarves.”
With that, Leinjar excused himself and went to check on other wounded. Roskin finished his breakfast in silence, considering what he had been told. How could his weakness have been perceived as strength? The ones who had spilled their blood on the orcs’ blades were the courageous. The friends who had tracked him halfway across the world were the heroes. He had played no part in his rescue; surely, in time, Leinjar and the others would come to see that.
When he finished eating, Roskin washed his dishes and returned them to their cabinet. He had no desire to take anything from these orcs, for there was enough to remind him of the ordeal. In his mind, the sooner he could get away from this place, the sooner he could begin to forget it. The more distance he could get between that cage and himself, the more he could escape its nightmare. As he thought this, he rubbed the brand on his hip.
A tall and slender elf entered the kitchen and greeted Roskin with the courtesy of a diplomat. He asked the dwarf to follow him, and Roskin agreed, glad to be distracted from his thoughts. The elf led him through the house and out the front door, where the sun had completely risen and glowed orange. On the manicured lawn, the freed slaves had camped, and smoldering fires dotted the yard. Near the center, he saw the horse he had taken from Murkdolm and Vishghu’s buffalo tethered to an orcish wagon. Crushaw sat in the wagon’s bed with his damaged ankle dressed by a crude splint. Even though the sun had barely broken the horizon, the old man was already calling out directions to the freed slaves around him, and with each instruction he gave, a group of three or four would hurry away to complete the task. For a moment, Roskin could imagine Crushaw at the helm of the Northern Army, barking orders before battle.
“Young master!” Crushaw called. “Come sit with me.”
Grimacing from the tightness across his back, Roskin climbed into the wagon and shook hands with his friend. Then, he sat beside him – careful not to lean back – and looked at the crowd of dwarves, elves, and humans, many of whom he recognized from the gathering around the post.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come to you yesterday,” Crushaw said, pointing to his leg.
“I wasn’t much company, anyway.”
“You look thin, young master. I wish we’d made it sooner.”
Roskin shrugged. His eyes filled with moisture.
“We had to finish the harvest. Then, the wilds slowed us some.”
“How’s your leg?” Roskin asked.
“Fine. It’s nothing. I have something for you.”
From the pack beside him, Crushaw pulled out the two throwing axes he had stolen in Koshlonsen. He handed them to Roskin, and the dwarf marveled at the craftsmanship of the weapons. He couldn’t help but feel unworthy of their splendor. While he studied them, another group of freed slaves came to Crushaw for guidance. The old man gave them several tasks to perform, and they scurried away.
“We’ve gotta get moving, soon,” Crushaw said, scanning the horizon as if expecting to see an army.
“What can I do?” Roskin asked, tucking the axes into his belt.
“Find Molgheon and Vishghu and bring them here. They can organize units to carry the wounded.”
Roskin gingerly climbed down and went back inside to find Vishghu. She was still asleep on the parlor floor and grunted her disapproval as Roskin shook her awake. After a few moments, she rose from the floor and stretched, her knuckles scraping the high ceiling as she did. Roskin asked if she knew where to find Molgheon, and without a word, the ogre turned and left the parlor. Roskin followed her up a flight of stairs and into a massive bedroom with an elegantly crafted canopy bed that had silk sheets and feather pillows. In the middle, Molgheon slept alone.
“She said she had always dreamt of such luxury,” Vishghu whispered.
Roskin called out to the sleeping dwarf, knowing that from her military training she might attack at even the slightest touch. She sat up quickly, drawing her knife and fixing her ey
es on the intruders.
“Crushaw needs us,” Roskin said, unfazed.
“You look rough,” Molgheon returned, sheathing her knife.
“He looks better than yesterday,” Vishghu said, chuckling.
“That must’ve been a sight.”
Molgheon climbed from bed and gathered her bow, the fresh quiver of arrows she had taken from the barracks, and her pack. Roskin led them to the kitchen, where a group of Tredjards were preparing breakfast for the entire plantation, even the orcs. They explained to the three that they had all been cooks in the infantry and that they had all been dreaming about getting to prepare another meal during their bondage.
“Cooking a meal is an act of love,” one of them said. “We’ve been without love for too long.”
“So true. So true,” another agreed.
The others laughed and teased the two. Molgheon and Vishghu each took slices of fresh sausage and thanked the cooks. Then, they followed Roskin out to Crushaw, eating as they walked. At the wagon, the general had gathered together a large congregation, and once the three had joined him, he divided the crowd into three units. Each unit was given a different task. Roskin’s group was to gather wood for building stretchers to carry the wounded. Vishghu’s was to get the wounded outside and ready to travel, including helping to build the stretchers, and Molgheon’s was to bury the dead.
The groups worked all day, stopping only for a short meal, and by evening most of the labor was complete. Crushaw was pleased with their progress and informed the camp that they would be leaving by noon the next day. At this news, a long cheer erupted. Standing in the crowd and hearing the cheer, Roskin realized that he hadn’t thought of the Brotherhood for some time and that its grip on him had mostly vanished, and he was glad. Then, in almost the same moment, he also realized that he was ready to return to Dorkhun and see his family. While he didn’t feel quite ready to take his place on the council, he was done with glory, and as he thought about it, his guilt subsided. Even if he hadn’t been part of the battle, he was part of helping these people back to freedom, and that was more gratifying than any dream of glory had ever been.