by T. H. Lain
Without warning, the half-orc's eyes opened and met hers. For one wild moment she was fascinated. One eye was blue, the other brown. Both bulged in their sockets. One long-nailed hand grasped her wrist firmly while he used the other to prop himself up. She didn't move to resist him.
"Where?" the half-orc growled. His dry throat made his voice crack, but Alhandra couldn't believe it would sound much different otherwise.
"You're safe," the paladin assured him.
The grip on her wrist didn't relax, however, and the half-orc's mismatched eyes stayed locked on her own. Perhaps "safe" wasn't a good enough answer.
"Where?" he repeated. There was no anger or fear in his voice—at least none she could detect—but there was insistence.
Alhandra looked pointedly at his hand, then back at him. She didn't want to give him the idea that he intimidated her. Even though, lying there weaponless and nearly naked, with her wearing her armor and her weapons, he shouldn't.
There's something about him, she thought, but she did not relent.
After a moment, the half-orc released her wrist and used his other hand to rise into a crouch, fluidly, as if there was no effort involved at all. He sat in that crouch easily, but his leg muscles were tense as if he was ready to spring. The paladin moved carefully and slowly, never looking away. She reached for and found a small wooden cup and filled it with water from a pitcher, then offered it to him. The half-orc sniffed at the water before accepting it.
"You're in the cellar of an inn—the Stag and Stalker."
The name obviously meant nothing to the half-orc, but his eyes darted across the walls and the ceiling. Fixing briefly on the stairs, with the door closed at the top and the single, small window with shutters sealed, they came back to Alhandra's face almost immediately.
"The inn is in a small village called Durandell," she continued, watching him.
That got a reaction. The half-orc's bulging eyes widened and he put the cup down. Clear water dripped down his rough chin and onto his gray throat.
"Do you remember what happened to you at the farm?" She didn't like bringing up the subject, but felt it was better to address it now.
The half-orc nodded slightly, but he didn't speak. Alhandra searched his face for some reaction, but he showed none.
Curious, she thought.
"Were you coming here?" she asked.
Shrugging, he picked up the cup again. It was empty. Alhandra broke eye contact and retrieved the pitcher. When she looked back, his eyes were downcast. She filled the cup.
"You're going to have to answer eventually, you know. The villagers don't mean you harm anymore." Alhandra believed that, despite how close things had actually come. "Evil humanoids—"
Alhandra stressed the word "evil"— "have been raiding them recently. Orcs, specifically," she added.
Again, the half-orc didn't react. He drank more water, slowly, and when she offered him the pitcher, he accepted it and filled the cup a third time without speaking.
"They want to know where you come from, what you're doing here, and what your intentions are."
When that elicited no response, Alhandra felt her patience wearing thin.
"They'll also want to know who you are."
"Krusk," the half-orc said simply, putting down the pitcher and the empty cup.
He looked at her again, but without the steady concentration of before—no, not at her, she decided, behind her. She looked in the direction of his gaze.
"Ah," she said, rising to her feet. Krusk stayed put, in that uncomfortable-looking crouch. Alhandra took a few steps toward a large ham hanging from the ceiling. She examined it and determined it was thoroughly cured. "I don't suppose Eoghan will mind," she said, drawing out her knife and cutting into the meat, "as long as I pay him for it later."
She sawed off a large chunk of meat, then did the same with a cheese nearby. She looked around and decided that Eoghan didn't keep bread in the cellar. She walked back to Krusk and sat down, handing him the food.
The half-orc attacked it diligently, without a knife. His uneven teeth made short work of the tough ham. Alhandra let him eat, fearing he might choke if she tried to make him talk at the same time. She poured him another cup of water.
As he finished, she said, "Outriders from the village found you, collapsed by a stream. I guess they did this—" she moved her hand toward his bandaged scalp, and he didn't flinch—"but you had more than a few wounds, and you were obviously dehydrated."
"Found a spring," he said.
"You collapsed in it. One of the outriders drove the wagon that brought us here," she added, though he didn't seem to care that she had this information. "You might have died out there, anyway."
A curious expression came over Krusk's ugly face then, but Alhandra couldn't quite interpret it. She decided to probe a little further.
"If you'd been left alone much longer, you would have died, wouldn't you, Krusk?"
The half-orc shrugged but looked defiant. "I survive," he said.
There was a trace of anger there, but Alhandra didn't think it was directed at her, or the outriders who'd found him, or even the villagers who'd tied him up. He made a show, however, of picking up his cup and filling it with water again. She supposed it was his way of trying to change the subject.
"You survived," Alhandra agreed, "but you're stuck here, unless you answer some questions. Eoghan—the innkeeper, the one who agreed to bring you here—he's as much of a leader as this village has. He won't be satisfied with just your name. He'll want to know more."
Krusk started to shake his head, spilling a little water on his chest. He looked down and dabbed at it, then his head jerked up in shock. He started looking around the room wildly and stood up. He narrowly missed smashing his skull on one of the crossbeams in the cellar's ceiling, but didn't seem to notice.
Struggling to her feet, Alhandra asked, "What's wrong? What are you doing, Krusk?"
Dropping the cup, Krusk spun in place. He looked almost comical, examining both himself and his surroundings. The villagers had stripped him down to his torn and stained breeches.
"Where?" he asked finally, looking at Alhandra with fear and pleading in his eyes.
"I told you—" she started, but he shook his head frantically, patting himself with his big hands.
"Where my things?" His voice sounded guttural and his diction almost unintelligible.
He's becoming frantic, she realized.
Alhandra walked quickly to the shelf where Krusk's dirty tunic, patchwork chain shirt, and other gear were piled. He sprang toward her when she lifted it up. Again, he nearly clipped his forehead on a beam, but he ducked as he moved this time.
Krusk grabbed at the chain shirt and Alhandra let him have it, backing away. He tossed it in his hands and something moved.
"Your weapons are upstairs," she offered with a hint of warning.
Shaking his head, Krusk stuck his hand down the front of the chain shirt and came away with an oilskin packet. Emblazoned on the flat side was what looked like a gold and red flame. Krusk dropped the chain shirt immediately and fumbled with the thong on the packet.
Alhandra slowly stepped forward. Krusk looked up and held the packet away slightly, so she stopped moving.
"What is it, Krusk?" she asked in a soothing voice.
He seemed to try to relax, but he didn't put the packet within her reach. When he shook his head, she frowned.
"You're going to have to tell me something, Krusk, or I, or someone else, will have to take it away."
The look that came over Krusk's face nearly made Alhandra reach for her sword. She fought the urge, though, thanking Heironeous that none of the villagers saw the half-orc glare angrily that way. If he'd been awake enough to do that at the barn... she drove away the thought.
"I'm just telling you, Krusk. You have to cooperate, at least a little, or there will be trouble. You don't want to have to fight a whole village, do you?"
For a moment the half-orc looked l
ike he might, but then his expression shifted back to its neutral but wary state.
"No," he said.
Alhandra moved back toward the pitcher and away from the stairs. If Krusk wanted to try to escape, she couldn't offer him a better chance.
Better to find out now, she thought.
But the half-orc rejoined her on the rushes. This time he sat down cross-legged, with the packet in his lap.
"All right, we might as well start with what you were doing at the edge of the canyon—and in the desert before that—and go from there."
Krusk spoke haltingly, and Alhandra knew he didn't tell her everything, but he told her of his flight from Kalpesh, the gnolls, and the death of his friends. The sunlight peeking in through the cracks of the window's shutters faded to amber by the time he finished. The darkness echoed the feelings in Alhandra's heart.
"A whole city sacked, and for—" she stopped.
Krusk had deliberately avoided mentioning anything about the contents of the oilskin packet he still held in his lap, but he had no guile. She knew this Captain Tahrain gave up his life, the lives of his men, and perhaps even the lives of everyone in Kalpesh to keep this packet out of his enemy's hands.
And what an enemy it was.
She shuddered internally, as if someone had poured cold water down her spine. If Krusk had described the marauding commander accurately...
"A blackguard," she mused with more than a little irony. "A devotee of Hextor."
She shook her head and looked away, thinking of her trainers, her mentor, and the fact that this was her first quest away from the guiding arms of the Order of Heironeous.
Well, they never said the life of a paladin would be a dull one, she thought wryly. Or long, for that matter.
Fire in the Night
"I'm certain, captain," the young gnoll whined. "They brought the half-orc here."
Grawltak stared at the rutted, muddy field. When they tracked their quarry out of the canyon to the spring, he nearly tore the throats out of his young scouts. Kark intervened, however, pointing out that while they couldn't pick up the half-orc's scent after that, the hoof prints clearly led north. Someone picked up their prey and carried it away.
"I don't understand ..." Grawltak mused aloud.
The young scout didn't dare speak, but the old lieutenant, Kark, did.
"The blood we found near the spring. We thought we hurt the half-orc. They found and captured it and brought it here."
The gnoll leader thought about this then barked in laughter as he thought of the irony. He'd nearly panicked because he thought someone helped his quarry to escape. The torn-up field and the wagon tracks, the blood they could all smell near the barn, all pointed to the same thing. No one rescued the barbarian—it was captured. When Grawltak's soft barking threatened to turn into a howl of relief, however, the gnoll felt Kark's claws touch his arm.
Light came from the farmhouse. They waited until dark to come close to the settlement, and they watched from the hedgerow.
"What now, pack-master?" the young scout asked.
Grawltak stared at him. "You, and you—" the gnoll leader pointed at another of the pups—"go search the barn. Find out if they killed it."
The chosen pair looked uneasy.
"The animals ..." one said.
Baring his teeth, Grawltak snarled. Animals, particularly farm-raised fowl and pigs, didn't like gnolls at all. They tended to make a lot of noise if they caught the scent of gnoll hunters. On any other occasion they'd be right to fear the gnoll pack. Tonight, Grawltak didn't have time to raid.
"Be certain they don't smell you, idiots!"
The wind blew from the west. It wouldn't take much time for his scouts to circle around and come in from the . . . Grawltak cursed violently. All the other gnolls nearby flattened their ears and cowered, except Kark, who nodded. To the east of the barn lay the farmhouse.
Grawltak sneered at his lieutenant and growled, "Take three more of these fools up to the farmhouse. If anyone notices anything, kill everyone. No one escapes!"
His pack, even Kark, nodded and yipped, eager to please. They'd better be. When the barbarian escaped them in the desert, Grawltak had seen death in his mistress's eyes. He was still surprised she'd punished only one of his pack, but she was in a hurry. She took the shamans after they questioned the dead—Grawltak's fur stood on edge as he remembered that—and they'd had little contact with her since. The gnoll fingered the amulet he wore and wondered if he should report in again.
No, he thought, the next time I see the mistress, the half-orc's blood will be in my mouth. I'll show her his torn throat and she will be pleased.
Despite his pack's fear of discovery, the scouting went well. None of the human farmers came out, even when one of the chickens got out of the coop and Kark snapped its neck.
"If they killed the half-orc," the scouts reported, "they didn't do it here, pack-master."
"Where is it, then?"
Wagon tracks rutted the ground and led north, toward the village.
"The ground was soft, pack-master. We can follow the tracks easily."
"Do it," Grawltak replied. Dark covered the land but the night was clear. Starlight and the sickle moon made it easy for the gnolls to see, but they could be seen, too. "Stay low and near cover."
Crouching and loping in pairs, the party of gnolls moved silently toward the village. No one marked their passing.
No one noticed the gnolls on their way from the farm because everyone not in their homes was stuffed into the Stag and Stalker's common room. Eoghan made sure everyone had something to drink—but not too much—and a few things to eat, then he took off his leather apron, handed it to his wife, and opened the cellar door.
Naull looked on from a seat near the hearth. No fire burned. She supposed they only used the fireplace on cold winter nights and those came few and far between in Durandell. Regdar sat across from her, wearing his newly-cleaned and repaired armor. She wondered why the fighter wore it now, but she didn't ask.
Ian came down from his room just as Alhandra stepped up from the root cellar. Naull looked at her in surprise. Was she down there this whole time? The paladin still wore her armor and had her sword at her side.
I guess so, Naull thought.
Ian pulled up a stool next to Naull and leaned over.
"Sleep well?" he asked.
She nodded, even though she'd had some pretty bizarre dreams. Naull didn't believe in precognition—well, except as a deliberate spell effect, of course—but she still felt uneasy.
Murmurs started as the half-orc followed Alhandra up out of the cellar. Most of the villagers were at the farm earlier, when they saw him strung up, bloody, and exhausted.
Alhandra's been busy, Naull thought. She even found him a shirt.
It was a tattered white tunic and it barely stretched across the half-orc's massive chest. He still wore his short breeches, but it looked like either he or Alhandra cleaned off most of the dirt.
At Eoghan's direction, Alhandra and Krusk moved to one of the shorter tables nearby. It stood close to the hearth but far away from any of the exits. It didn't appear to be an effort to keep the half-orc from escaping; placing him in that spot just made it easier for everyone to see him without shifting around much.
Naull and Regdar scanned the crowd but Ian watched the half-orc. He sat uneasily on a chair by the table. Alhandra whispered something to him and he seemed to relax slightly. One hand hovered near his chest.
"Regdar?"
Naull nudged her partner and he turned to face her.
"What?" he whispered.
"Has he got something there?"
Regdar squinted, though they weren't more than a dozen feet from the half-orc.
"I don't know," Regdar answered. "His stuff's over there."
He pointed to a basket containing a small pack and the half-orc's chain mail. Someone had brought it up from the cellar. Regdar propped up the barbarian's axe and bow in the corner nearest his seat.
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Opening her mouth, Naull started to say something, but Eoghan thumped a block of wood on the table. He, Alhandra, and the half-orc all sat behind it. Everyone else in the inn found a seat or a post to lean on and the room grew quiet.
"This is not a trial!" Eoghan said in a loud voice. "Our... visitor hasn't done anything to be put on trial for." The innkeeper nodded along the table at the half-orc, who didn't appear to notice. Alhandra, however, inclined her head in thanks. "But we have a responsibility t'know who he is an' what he's doin' here."
Alhandra stood. "I will speak for this man," she said in a clear voice. "He answered my questions, and though I am not of your village and have no authority here, I am satisfied he means no harm and has done nothing that would threaten Durandell or any of its interests."
A few hours ago, Alhandra won over a hostile crowd on the verge of lynching the half-orc. Naull and Regdar exchanged glances and looked over the villagers in attendance. A few nodded already, as if that was good enough for them.
Okay, I'm impressed, Naull thought.
The hearing went well and quickly, though there were some incidents of interest. When Krusk—as Alhandra introduced him—told haltingly of the attack on Kalpesh and its likely fall to an army of humanoids, many of the villagers cried out in dismay. Because of the desert and the dangers of the canyon in between, Durandell had little contact with the southern city. Every so often, however, a traveler did come through, bringing stories of the exotic desert metropolis, silks, oils, and other goods not often seen in the small town. One of the inn's favorite decorations was an oddly-shaped oil lamp that hung above the fireplace. It had a foreign appearance with its long neck and more than a few villagers looked up at it when they heard of the storming of the city.
No one asked how or why Krusk and a few other men and women from the city escaped. All assumed those refugees fled in fear of their lives, or perhaps in a desperate but doomed effort to find help. Ian frowned, however, and Naull exchanged a look with the half-elf. They both met Alhandra's eyes as she helped Krusk relate the story of the battle at the edge of the desert. Naull almost let out an audible gasp when she saw the paladin shake her head, almost imperceptibly, as their eyes met. The two locked gazes until Naull shut her mouth and nodded slowly.