Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  Shain was already striding forward, boots clocking along the wooden platform. He had no choice but to do the same.

  She headed directly to the chieftain's inner palace. While Shain spoke to Loton, Joti was dragged away to be bathed, fed, and tended to, which he suspected was the servants' excuse to pry gossip out of him. He didn't feel like indulging them, but he'd come to learn that speculation and intrigue were the lifeblood of the servants, and if you denied them it, then you damned yourself to an existence of cold food and tepid bathwater.

  Cleaned and dressed, he made his way to the palace's gymnasium. He was working on his swordplay when Shain strolled in looking like she'd just bedded a clan-prince.

  "Loton has agreed," she said. "We make war on the invaders. Five days from now, we'll be wringing their blood from our clothes."

  "Just five days? How's that work out? Four days to organize, and one day to pray to the gods to teleport our army to the river?"

  "Loton's already sent runners down to Dolloc and the hills below. We march tomorrow morning. If we can beat the Rusk's reinforcements to The Place Where We Ate All Those Herons, we can smash them. But if we wait, everything gets thrown into doubt."

  The rest of the day, the Peak was as busy as a Gru construction site. By early the next morning, provisions were being loaded into carts and sailed downstream to Dolloc. By ten o'clock, Marshals, wardens, servants, and soldiers-in-training assembled around the staircase down from the Peak. With half an hour left until noon, Cog Loton came to stand before them.

  "For centuries, the No-Clan has sacrificed to preserve the peace of the borderlands." Loton's steely eyes moved slowly across his people. "Today, a new threat shadows the Duk Mak—and just as we have done for generations, we will wipe the darkness from the land."

  His warriors grunted gruffly and thrust up their fists. They marched down the trail in a column, scouts ranging ahead. They were only two hundred in total, but with fifteen Marshals in the ranks, and nearly a hundred highly-trained wardens, they were the equal of a force many times their size.

  At Dolloc Castle, men and women streamed from the gates dressed in armor of leather and chain, spears held high, banners flapping. A tingle ran down Joti's spine. Together, they marched as hard as their stamina allowed, coming to the hills, where scouts and runners met them with another three hundred conscripts gathered overnight from the mining camps and towns. They now outnumbered the invaders by one-half.

  They poured into the plains, using wozzits to plow a trail through the snow and keep the troops moving freely forward. Shain often ranged ahead, but there was no sign of enemy movement.

  A portion of Joti's blood ran hot for the coming battle—he was no different from his fellow orcs, who seemed to need fighting and warring as much as food or drink—but another portion chewed at himself. During the battle with the cavalry, he had, at the end, planted the lance and made his stand against the wozzit-riders. It had been enough to let Shain and Nod recover enough to bear them to safety.

  If not for Brakk's charge, though, he would have given in. Now, his failure to act first was all Joti could think about.

  They reached the plains. The following morning, their numbers seemed less impressive than the day before. Joti frowned, counting up bodies.

  Shain appeared beside him. "So you've noticed?"

  "The conscripts. A quarter of them are gone."

  "Closer to a third. Their drunken enthusiasm didn't last very long, the scum. That's the trouble with orcs—unless they're fighting for family or tribe, they tend to vanish as fast as smoke in the wind."

  "But their weakness is what makes the No-Clan so effective, isn't it?"

  She nodded vaguely. "And the invaders so frightening."

  The next day, fewer than half the conscripts remained. More than a few of Dolloc's soldiers looked unenthused, too. Joti wanted to yell at them, but stepping out of line would only get him assigned to digging latrines.

  When they were within half a day's march from The Place Where We Ate All Those Herons, Shain returned from scouting in a ground-eating jog, her face creased. Joti tried to catch her eye, but she headed straight for Chief Loton. They talked for several minutes, pacing and pointing toward the river, consulting with the chief's Marshals and lieutenants.

  They concluded their conversation. Shain hustled to speak to one of her wardens, who bobbed his head and whistled to a dozen other wardens and trainees. To all sides, sergeants bawled orders, readying their people.

  Shain looked about, spotted Joti, and closed on him in a blink. "I found a message from Nod. The Orange Lady is no longer at the ferry. She's taken a raiding party into the north—and across the border."

  His neck prickled. "To stir up war?"

  "We don't know. That is exactly why we must pursue her. But we can't cross the border with a full-blown army without sparking off a war ourselves. Our only play is to send a small party of our own after her. Loton believes that if we are able to decapitate their leadership, the troops stationed here will fall to infighting and common banditry. We might not even need to fight them."

  "How long ago did the Orange Lady leave?"

  "Two days."

  "Then we'd better get moving."

  Shain cocked her head. "'We'? You are sworn to Dolloc Castle. And that's where you'll now return."

  "But I know what she looks like. What her people look like. I can help you find—"

  "I was given a plenty good look at her when she was doing her best to kill us. Your help has been invaluable, but this is No-Clan business now."

  "It's because I tried to kill her, isn't it?"

  The Marshal's eyebrows bent. "Of course it is."

  Joti flung out his hands. "Then say so! After everything else, do you think I can't accept my own mistakes?"

  "I don't think you understand. In most outfits, disobeying the direct order of your superiors and putting your entire party at mortal risk is a capital crime. You're lucky I'm sending you to Dolloc and not a shallow grave."

  He dropped to one knee and extended his neck. "I vow to obey you. To obey the mission. And if I break my vow, to give you my life without complaint."

  "Yes, I've heard you make vows before. Like when you pledged your life to the No-Clan even if it meant you'd be no more than a servant."

  "When I made that vow, I didn't understand what it meant. I still didn't understand it when I loosed my arrow at the Orange Lady. But I swear to you on my mother and father that I understand it now."

  Shain sighed heavily, then whacked him on the head with her cap. "Dog's tits, get up. How are you going to run after them with me when you're down on your knees?"

  Joti grinned and stood.

  ~

  They ran north into the hills. All told, they numbered just twenty in all. Gogg was among them. Joti thought their reintroduction might be awkward, but Gogg merely nodded at him before returning his attention to the business of not slipping in the deep snows they were hurrying through as fast as they could.

  Warning them that it might be their last one for weeks, Shain allowed a fire that night. They hunched around it, steam peeling from their boots and socks. Gogg thunked down next to Joti and bolted down a bowl of potatoes and venison roasted in its own juices.

  Done, he smacked down his bowl and ran his sleeve across his mouth. "They say you fought the woman we're runnin' down. They right?"

  Joti laughed. "I shot at her and missed, then was almost killed by her army. Does that count as 'fighting'?"

  "Fightin' is fightin'. If you got out with your head on your neck, you fought good enough." Gogg motioned toward the now-distant mountains. "Down at the castle, do you learn what you need?"

  "Our practice isn't as rigorous as in the Peak. But it's good enough."

  "I don't talk about spears and fists." He leaned forward and tapped Joti's head with a greasy finger. "I talk about this."

  "Well, I can't have learned that much. I just volunteered to spend all day running toward human lands and all n
ight sleeping in the snow."

  Gogg stared at him with his beady eyes, which made him look so much dumber than he was, and grunted. "You're still too small. But not so small as you used to be."

  Their party slept, exhausted. Shain kicked them awake before sunrise. They ran by the moonlight, then by the dawn, running like wozzits, working too hard to talk, following a series of wind-swept ridges up to the low mountains that (somewhat) protected humans from orcs. Twice that day, Shain spied trunktalk left by Nod, following the simple messages to more detailed notes she'd hidden out of sight. These were made of woven strands of yellow grass that would have fallen apart within a few days, leaving no trace of their message behind.

  "Gaining," Shain said. "But not fast enough. Move your boots!"

  Onward they ran. The trail was blanketed in thick powder and they advanced single-file, swapping out those in the front whenever they got tired of stomping down snow. The trail got so steep Shain let them slow to a walk. The grass vanished altogether. Broken jumbles of red rock jabbed from the white blanket. For a full hour, they trudged upward as if trapped on an endless staircase.

  Finally, the ground leveled out. To all sides, the land fell away, as if they were standing on the roof of the world. Shain stopped, mouth covered by her scarf, cloak flapping about her.

  Joti's feet squeaked in the snow. "Enjoying the view?"

  "Do you know what we're looking at?"

  "I'm not close enough to say for sure, but I think it might be more snow."

  "That's the Alliance. Human lands."

  "Are they patrolled?"

  "In this weather, not heavily. But we must move cautiously. One wrong step, and they'll do everything they can to kill us."

  "How's that any different from orcish lands?"

  She snorted. "Hah! In many ways, not at all. But if you, an orc, were to slay an orc in orcish lands, their family would come to get vengeance on you personally, the individual killer. Kill a human in human lands, however, and they'll send raiders to murder everyone who looks like you."

  They descended into tree-studded hills. The air grew slightly less frigid. Far below, the snow on the lowlands was patchy. When at last their legs gave out, Shain led them off the trail to make camp beneath a cliff that leaned so far forward it looked like it could fall down on them at any minute. That night, they lit no fire.

  Halfway through the next day's march, after hours of up-and-down travel over a trail that was barely there, a slender figure dressed in a white cloak walked out from what seemed to be nowhere.

  Nod frowned at them. "Took you so long?"

  Shain planted her hands on her hips. "Why did you let an invading war party skip its way into Alliance lands?"

  The other Marshal smiled crookedly, but it soon faded. "They're less than a day ahead. They're dressed as the Freygar tribe."

  "The same as they did when they attacked the Daryar. My bet is they're here for similar reasons—to raid Alliance settlements, and provoke the humans into hitting back against the tribes that currently threaten the invaders' power."

  "Which would include us."

  "What if it's more than that?" Joti felt as though he were lurching forward. "To take the Duk Mak, all they'd have to do is set the tribes against each other. Instead, they're dragging the Alliance into the conflict. Why would they do that unless they want to weaken the Alliance, too?"

  Shain shot him a nasty look. "You are correct, and I hate it. Dragging the Alliance into the Duk Mak could threaten their control of the mithril strike. Either they're after something even more valuable, or they intend to seize much more territory than the Duk Mak."

  Nod folded her arms. "Arrogant."

  "The only difference between arrogance and confidence is whether you can get the job done. Whatever fire our foes intend to light here, we must stamp it out before it consumes the entire border in flames."

  They pressed on harder than ever, descending into the hills. Later that day, the path ran past a hilltop settlement of stone houses capped by steeply pitched roofs and surrounded by a palisade of spiked posts. They detoured around it from too far away for Joti to make out the humans manning the walls. They soon reached the camp where Nod had last seen the invaders a few hours earlier. There, they paused to ready themselves for the coming battle.

  The road snaked through the hills, leading in time to a stone fortress embedded in the side of a steep rise. They approached with all the speed their stealth allowed, but they were too late. In the courtyards and staircases, the bodies of orcs and humans lay silent and still, the blood frozen where it had poured from their wounds.

  26

  It was two days out of Cohos when they saw the first of the wagons, laden with everything that the family walking beside it owned. They looked quickly at Wit's staff and Wa'llach's axe and hurried on their way. Wit and Wa'llach exchanged glances and rode on.

  They stopped the second wagon, nearly identical to the first. The worried father said he had heard of trouble near the frontier, remembered the stories of orc raiding parties and did not want anything to do with it. They were pulling up stakes and heading to relatives nearer the capital.

  As the day wore on, the refugees became more frequent, and their reports increasingly grim. Castles had been overrun, and entire populations murdered.

  "Where's your house?" Wa'llach asked a man in the mid-afternoon.

  "What's it matter?"

  "With things like this, it won't be any use trying to find a place at an inn. We might try your roof over the stars."

  The man told them.

  "We might find more information at the inn."

  "That the orcs have tamed the dragons, overran Hogan's keep, and are marching on the capital? I can tell you ghost stories myself, and we won't be gouged for a bed. We'll learn something at Cohos Pass, and we'll get there tomorrow."

  Wit's best guess was that the dwarf had seen something in the man's cart that led him to suspect that the man was a brewer, although Wit had no idea what; his second best guess was that his companion had an extremely developed sense of smell. In either case, Wit was not surprised when Wa'llach vanished shortly after their arrival at the cottage, and was even less surprised when he found Wa'llach in a shed next to a barrel of beer. He had pried the top off the barrel and was drinking out of a bucket.

  They glared at each other for a moment, and then Wa'llach offered the bucket to Wit. Still glaring at the dwarf, Wit accepted the bucket and took a long sip. He handed the bucket back to Wa'llach and went to look for food.

  The next day, the road was thick with people coming out of Cohos Pass. The stories, while still overly dramatic, and almost all secondhand, were getting consistent: something had happened at the Cohos mine and the fort that protected it had fallen. While bandits, ghouls, and a roving griffin flock were all credited, the most common source of the trouble was orcs.

  They arrived in Cohos Pass near sundown. Cohos Pass was a medium-sized town at the foot of the mountain that held the mine. The town was the holding of Tobias, and all the land to the west of it belonged to Hogan of Cohos. Much of the population had already abandoned the town; its less excitable citizens remained, watching the road to the mine with grim, resigned eyes.

  The town held a small garrison of Tobias' soldiers. Most of them were guarding a barricade that they had set up on the road to the mine. Wit sought out their leader, a nervous man with a sergeant's insignia, and asked him what he knew.

  The sergeant told Wit that injured people had been coming in from Hogan's land, although not many of them. The reports were that the mine and Hogan's keep had been overrun by orcs who had come across the mountains from the side of Cohos that bordered on the frontier. The sergeant had sent messengers to Tobias asking for orders and reinforcements. If help arrived at all, his best guess was that it would take three or four days.

  Wa'llach glared at the mountain. "You'll hear from them up there, before that, if they want to come down here." He gave the barricade a dismissive kick. "It was
no mean feat to take the keep: no one is getting up that road unless they want it. The prudent thing is to ride to Tobias. We'll get word to the capital—lots of people will be headed that way on fast horses. We can come along if someone tries to take the mine and the keep, and your Cardozo will know where to send word to, if he wants us to do otherwise."

  Wit nodded. "I think that you are right. Leave in the morning?"

  The inn was full, and it took the full combination of Wit's status as a wizard and Wa'llach's general menace for them to get a room to themselves. While many right-thinking citizens had departed, another class had taken their place, seeking mercenary work or the opportunity to plunder, and not particular about which.

  It was a sordid crowd in which Wa'llach was immediately at home, and the dwarf was quickly winning a game of dice. Wit found a place by the window and watched the road over a plate of lukewarm stew. He briefly wondered if Wa'llach's success at the dice game was the result of cunning or outright cheating but soon gave up. He found himself thinking about Princess Elayne, and then the capital and his friends, and then back to Elayne.

  When he stared at the mountain, half way up, he could see a wisp of something that might have been smoke from a large fire, and might have been a low hanging cloud.

  When he got up he was mildly surprised to see that Wa'llach was gone. He did not think that anything about their situation would have prevented him from seeking out mischief, but he had been strongly under the impression that the dwarf was having a good time.

  He was more surprised when he went up to their room. Wa'llach's winnings at the dice game had been converted into a bottle of spirits, and his portable arsenal was spread out over both of the beds, along with several sharpening stones, two bottles of mysterious oils, and a pile of rags that he had made from the bed sheets. Wa'llach himself was sitting in a chair holding a dagger and methodically working on the blade with a stone, pausing every so often to watch the candlelight shining off the weapon's edge.