ORCS: Army of Shadows

by Stan Nicholls

  She looked forward with relish to pursuing the warband. But first she had somewhere else to go.

  Beyond the vale of the worlds, the Wolverines’ two sturdy boats sailed on.

  They were lucky with the weather: the sea was calm and the sky clear, which meant the pair of craft could travel within a short hailing distance of each other. That was useful for Pepperdyne, who was able to bawl instructions to the second vessel when it was doubtfully handled. Coilla, in charge of the second boat, was grateful for the guidance. Haskeer was less enamoured of a human bellowing orders at them.

  Stryke, Jup and Dallog were the high-rankers on the boat Pepperdyne skippered. Standeven was aboard too, typically seated as far from the others as possible, and looking bilious despite the millpond sea.

  Pepperdyne had been navigating by the Sun and, earlier, by the fast-fading stars as dawn broke, using a basic star chart he had got from the elder. It was a crude method, and he was anxious for some kind of landmark to confirm their position. At around noon, he got it.

  Jup pointed. “There!”

  Far off, they could just make out three or four dark bumps rising from the sea’s otherwise featureless surface.

  “You’ve good eyesight,” Pepperdyne complimented.

  “But they are islands, right?”

  “Have to be,” Stryke replied. He had the chart spread on a bench, and tapped a particular spot. “These, I reckon.”

  Pepperdyne leaned in for a look. “I think you’re right.”

  “So we’re on course?”

  The human nodded. “More or less.”

  “But how much can we trust the map?” Jup wondered.

  “It seems true so far. Though my hunch is that it covers just the immediate area.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Only if we have to go outside what the map shows, for any reason. Into what would be, for us, uncharted seas. If this world’s all ocean there are probably a damn sight more islands than on here.”

  “I heard one of those dwarf children come out with an old saying,” Dallog informed them. “It was about there being as many islands as there are stars in the sky.”

  “Poetic, but not very helpful if we have to travel further than this chart.”

  “I don’t see the need to,” Stryke said. “The map tells us where we started and where we need to get to. Anything else happens, we’ll deal with it.”

  “Hope you’re right,” Jup remarked. “For Spurral’s sake.”

  They had seen the chain of islands on the second boat too.

  Wheam was particularly excited at their first sight of landfall. “This is an important moment. It should be celebrated. It will be, in the epic ballad I’m going to make out of this voyage.”

  “Oh joy,” Haskeer intoned flatly.

  “If only I had my lute. I always found it so much easier to word-weave with that in my hands. It was such a blow losing it.”

  “Yeah, a real tragedy.”

  “You’ll just have to compose it in your head,” Coilla suggested.

  “If there’s enough room in there,” Haskeer muttered.

  Wheam was oblivious to barbs. “This ballad could be the making of me as a songsmith. Once I perform it —”

  “You know,” Coilla told him, “you really showed some promise back there in Acurial. When you lost your temper with that human over your lute.”

  “He made me angry. But —”

  “Exactly. It brought out your orcishness. Don’t you think it’s better to try being what you were born for than —”

  “Poncing about like a limp-wristed fop with water for blood,” Haskeer finished for her.

  “Not quite the way I’d have put it,” Coilla admitted, “but not far off.”

  “Why can’t I be a warrior and a bard? A warrior-bard.”

  “Don’t think there have been too many of those among our race.”

  “Then I’ll be the first!”

  “Just focus on the warrior bit. It’s more likely to keep you alive.”

  “I don’t see why I —”

  “Just a minute.” She was staring out to sea.

  “But —”

  “Quiet. Look.” Coilla stretched an arm to indicate something she’d seen.

  “What?” Haskeer said. “Another island?”

  “No. Something small, and not far off. See it?”

  He squinted, a hand shading his eyes. “Yeah. What is that?”

  “Dunno. Could be just a bit of flotsam. Hang on. Something moved.”

  “I think it’s somebody waving,” Wheam reckoned.

  “You could be right,” Coilla agreed. She stood up and hailed the other boat, then gestured towards the object.

  Stryke judged it something worth investigating, and ordered the boats to alter course.

  As they got nearer, they saw that it was indeed a figure, clinging to a chunk of driftwood.

  “It’s a dwarf!” Jup exclaimed.

  “And female,” Pepperdyne added.

  When they reached the castaway, oars were upped on one side of Stryke’s boat and she was hauled aboard. They laid her on the deck. She was obviously exhausted, and parched from exposure to the Sun, but didn’t seem to be seriously hurt. Though she was very frightened.

  “It’s all right,” Jup soothed. “Here, drink this.” He pressed a canteen of water to her lips. “Steady, steady. Not too fast.”

  “I recognise her,” Dallog decided.

  “I think I do, too,” Pepperdyne said. “From the island.”

  Jup grew animated. “Then she must have been taken with the others.” He began lightly slapping the girl’s cheeks. “Come on. Wake up.”

  “Go easy on her,” Stryke warned. “She’ll come out of it in her own time.”

  “Here.” Pepperdyne handed Jup a brandy flask. “Try her with a little of this.”

  A trickle of the fiery liquid had the girl coughing, but it put some colour into her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered and opened, and she looked up at them fearfully.

  “Everything’s all right,” Jup assured her gently. “How’re you feeling?”

  She groaned and tried to say something.

  “What’s your name?”

  She managed, “Dweega.” Then she focused and recognised him. “The… god.”

  “Well, not really.”

  “I… know. She told… me.”

  “She? Who told you? Was it Spurral, Dweega? Remember? She was with us on your island.”

  Dweega nodded.

  “She’s alive?” Jup asked, not daring to hope.

  “Yes.”

  Jup punched the air. “I knew it!”

  “But…”

  He sobered. “What?”

  “The… Gatherers… Salloss Vant…”

  “Who?”

  “She’s done in,” Stryke declared. “Let her rest for a while. At least we know Spurral’s alive.”

  “Or was when this one last saw her.”

  “Which probably wasn’t that long ago,” Pepperdyne offered. “You don’t get much time when you’re adrift, what with the Sun and lack of water. She might only have been out here for a matter of hours.”

  “Which means the Gatherers’ ship can’t be far off.”

  “Yes. Assuming that’s where this girl came from, which seems a good bet.”

  “But which direction?” Jup scanned the ocean.

  “Our best plan’s to keep going for the Gatherers’ base,” Stryke decided. “Chances are that’s where they’re heading.”

  Jup nodded at Dweega. “So how come this one ended up in the drink?”

  “Noticed her leg?” Dallog asked.

  They looked, and saw that one of the girl’s legs was twisted and distended.

  “That’s not a recent injury,” Dallog continued. “I’d say it’s been like that for quite a while. Maybe she was born that way.”

  Jup’s face clouded. “You’re saying those bastards dumped her overboard because of it?”

  “They’r
e slavers. They’ve no use for faulty produce.”

  “Shit. What’s Spurral gotten herself into?”

  “They’ve no reason to do the same with her,” Stryke reminded him.

  “Far as we know. And she’s not one to take bullshit from anybody. She could provoke them and —”

  “She’s smart, Jup. Seems to me she’ll know how to play it.”

  The dwarf nodded, but looked doubtful.

  “We push on,” Stryke said. “Give this girl dry clothes and see if you can get some food down her. Once she rallies she might tell us more.”

  It was about time to relieve the first set of rowers, so Stryke ordered the changeover. He got Coilla to do the same on her boat. With fresh bodies at the oars, they set off again at a fast clip.

  A couple of hours passed before Dweega started to come to herself. Hesitantly, she told them what she knew about Spurral, and of Salloss Vant.

  “You know where they were going?” Stryke asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “Or where they are now?”

  “Roughly. The course they were on, anyway.”

  “Will you help us track ’em?”

  “I’m… frightened. I don’t want to go back to… that man.”

  “It’ll be different this time,” Jup promised. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  She looked around at the warband, taking in their weather-beaten, scarred faces, and the flint in their eyes. “All right.”

  “So how far are we from their ship?” Stryke asked.

  “Maybe closer than we think,” Dallog interrupted. “Look.”

  Well to their stern was a ship. It was distant enough for the details to be hazy, but the white of its sails was plain to see.

  “Could that be them?” Jup wondered, a real edge in his voice.

  “No,” Pepperdyne said. “It’s a different class of ship from the one they had.”

  “What do you think, Dweega?” Jup said. “Recognise it?”

  “He’s right. It’s not the Gatherers’ ship I was on.”

  “Who says they’ve only got one ship?” Dallog speculated. “Might be more of ’em.”

  “Could be,” Stryke conceded. “Then again, there must be lots of ships, this being a world of islands.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pepperdyne said. “I’ve been watching it for quite a time, while you were tending the girl. It never varies its speed, never falls back or forges on. It’s always at the same bearing. I’d say whoever that is, they’re shadowing us.”

  19

  The casting overboard of Dweega galvanised many of the captive dwarfs. But they knew the Gatherers of old, and their terrible reputation. Angry as they were, and grief-stricken over Dweega, the dwarfs wanted to act but remained fearful. Spurral did her best to change that.

  The whipping she and Kalgeck had taken left them pained and badly sore. There was no ministration from the Gatherers, not that they had expected any, but their fellow captives rallied round. They had been stripped of their few miserable valuables, with the exception of a small number of items even the slavers thought worthless. These included certain herbs and salves the dwarves habitually carried. They gave some relief, and speeded healing.

  Although she hadn’t welcomed the thrashing, Spurral was perversely grateful for it. It sharpened her appetite for revenge, and her fortitude earned her kudos among the other prisoners, making them more open to her whispered seditions. Kalgeck, too, seemed to find resolve in his punishment.

  Spurral immediately set them to work making weapons. Nothing resembling blades could be pilfered. So they improvised bludgeons from pieces of timber and sacking. They made slingshots with strips of cloth, and sneaked peach-stones out of the crew’s swill buckets for shot. Part of the reason they got away with it was that the slavers had no regard for them. They were too used to plundering the dwarfs’ island without opposition, and saw them as timid, unresourceful creatures. The Gatherers had grown complacent, which suited Spurral.

  The only time they could really work on the weapons was at night, belowdecks in their makeshift dormitory. In almost complete darkness, by touch.

  Satisfied that lookouts were posted, Spurral and Kalgeck, sprawled on their mean sacking, were busy fashioning wooden hatchets.

  “How can we fight with these?” Kalgeck whispered, holding up his crude effort.

  “They only need to work once or twice. To get us some real weapons.”

  “Oh. Right. You know a lot about fighting, Spurral.”

  “I’ve done a lot of it. You?” She knew he hadn’t.

  “Not really.”

  “Then trust me.”

  “I overheard something Vant said today.”

  “What?”

  “He said we’ll be at our destination soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Didn’t say. But it sounded like very soon.”

  “So the quicker we strike —”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to wait until we get wherever we’re going? You know, and maybe make a break for it?”

  “No. We don’t know what we’ll be up against when we dock. Here, we’ve got just the crew to deal with.”

  “Just?”

  “They’re flesh and blood. They bleed and die like anybody else.”

  “Including us.”

  “Listen, Kalgeck: characters like Salloss Vant dominate others in two ways. First, by force. Second, fear. They trade on their victims being afraid of what they might do. To overcome the Gatherers you have to overcome the fear.”

  “That’s easily said.”

  “What’s the worst they can do?”

  “Kill us?”

  “That depends on whether you think death’s worse than enslavement and misery.”

  “And you don’t.”

  “I don’t want to die any more than you do. But I like the idea of this scum staying alive even less.” She tried to make out his expression in the poor light. “You are still with me on this?”

  He was a moment answering. “Yes.”

  “And the others?”

  “Most of them, I think. But all of us are…”

  “Afraid? There’s no shame in it, Kalgeck. It’s something we have to get over.”

  “Even you?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Of course.”

  “You credit us with more courage than we deserve. We’re not known for bravado.”

  “So-called courage isn’t about doing something without fear. It’s doing something despite fear. Show me somebody who doesn’t feel dread in a fix like this and I’ll show you a fool.”

  “Can we hope for help? From those who dropped from the sky with you?”

  She had to smile, though he couldn’t see it. “I know Jup and the others will be doing their best to find us. But we can’t count on that. We have to suppose we’re alone.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “We need to seize an opportunity, and soon. Pass the word for everybody to be ready to act, and watch for my lead.”

  The sky was a breathtaking canvas of crystal-clear stars.

  Night had not deterred or slowed the ship stalking the Wolverines’ boats. It maintained the same distance and rate of knots, and had no trouble staying on course despite the orcs’ vessels being completely unlit. The ship itself did bear lights, or at least gave off a soft illumination that couldn’t be accounted for by lanterns. It progressed in an eerie glow, like a ghost ship.

  On the first boat, Pepperdyne had managed to avoid contact with Standeven since they started out. Now he felt obliged to check with the man who, in spite of himself, he still thought of as his master.

  Standeven remained in the seat he’d occupied since they began the journey, and hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with anyone. It was a measure of how the others thought about him that, full as the boat was, he sat alone. He was staring at the ship trailing them when Pepperdyne perched beside him.

  “Who do you think they are?” he asked in an und
ertone.

  Standeven shrugged. “Who knows? But it’s obvious what they’re after.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course. What are the most valuable things on this boat?” He looked around furtively before answering his own question in an animated whisper. “The instrumentalities!”

  “How would they know we’ve got them?”

  “How did that group that attacked us in Acurial know?”

  “You reckon it’s them?”

  “Perhaps. Or some other. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that they understand the worth of the artefacts.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “We’ve let ourselves lose sight of what prizes they are.”

  “I thought we’d seen the sense in abandoning that idea.”

  “You might call it sense. I say anybody who turns their back on a fortune must be a fool.”

  “You can’t still be thinking they could be taken. From an orc warband? That’s insane.”

  “Given the power at stake, and the riches, it’d be worth the risk.”

  “Say we did get them. What then?”

  “We’d use them to get out of this wretched world and —”

  “How? We’d need Stryke’s amulet too, and there’s no way he’d let either that or the stars out of his sight.”

  “There’s always a means, Pepperdyne.”

  “Like stealing them? The way the one Coilla had was taken back in Acurial?”

  Standeven’s face twisted. He raised his voice. “How often do I have to tell you —”

  “Ssshhh! Keep it down. If the others get a hint of what you’re thinking…” Heads had turned. Pepperdyne gave them a bland smile. When they lost interest he added, in an even lower tone, “You’re forgetting something. The damn stars aren’t working properly anyway. So what are you going to do? Keep trying in the hope of them taking us home? And if by some miracle we got there, what do you do about the debt you owe Kantor Hammrik?”

  “There’d be no need to pay debts with the instrumentalities in our possession. Or to go home. We could find ourselves a pleasant world somewhere. Maybe one where the natives are so backward we could rule them. We’d be kings, Pepperdyne.”