"What in seven hells are you doing?" There being no space on either bed, Wit sat in a chair.
"Go up the damn mountain, I don't want a dull blade to keep me from coming back. It'll be hard enough anyway."
"Who says we are going up the mountain?"
Wa'llach said nothing and returned his attention to the blade.
"I'm not going up any mountain," Wit said. "Clear a space on a bed."
Wa'llach snorted with contempt and drank. "Oh, we'll go up your damn mountain."
"Why?"
"You tell me, you're the one who's going to make us do it."
Wit sighed. "Because whatever is happening there might be destroying the information that we were sent to find."
"Can't destroy an iron vein."
"No, the iron will be there. But we should find out, if we can, how the iron came to be sent to the wall in Youngkent. And we'll have less of a chance of knowing that the longer we wait. And we might learn something about who decided to destroy the mine when I was sent to inspect it. That might be worth knowing."
Wa'llach nodded briskly and pointed the dagger in his hand at Wit like a finger. "See here, Hogan had nearly two hundred men in the keep. Then there were another hundred dwarf miners who would be more than happy to pick up the heaviest thing handy and swing it at an orc. There's a chance that whoever mauled him is hurt bad themselves. We might be able to strike them now, while they're licking their wounds."
"Strike them with what?"
"There's twenty soldiers, and they all seem decent enough, the best have seen action and the worst can still follow orders. These," he pointed to the inn, "maybe a dozen of them can handle a blade and be trusted not to stab you in the back with it. We can probably scare up another dozen who will run where you tell them. We'll climb up, scout as much as we can. If the situation is to our liking, we hit them head on with maybe half the soldiers and all of the wasters; you, me, the best of the cutthroats, and the rest of the soldiers might have some luck getting behind them and cutting them down."
Wit frowned. "They say there are orcs up there. You know orcs as well as anyone in the Alliance. Who do you think they are and what are they doing?"
Wa'llach shook his head. "They're not the ruffians I rode with, or any like them. They never rode more than thirty together, and mostly groups of ten. They couldn't take a keep like Hogan's. The orcs that could do that…well, it would likely be the main horde of a clan. Now, as I see it, there's three candidates: the Drim of the Mountains, the Gru of the plains, or the Artusk of the forests. If it's the Drim, I say we're well and truly screwed: they grow up fighting dwarves, and would know how to take a keep, and most important, wouldn't bother to do it, if they couldn't make it work."
He put the dagger on the bed, had a long drink, picked up a second dagger, and began to work on it. "The other two—well, we might have something to work with. My money is on the Gru: they're powerful enough, and ambitious enough to take the castle, but they are scatterbrained enough to not have a clear idea what to do with it. If it's them, aye, they could have taken the keep, but not with enough of them left alive to lower the drawbridge. As for the Artusk, they're nasty bastards. If they took the keep, they would have been looking for blood—and they might not give a damn what happens, once they killed whoever they were after."
"Who would that have been?"
"Hogan perhaps, he's fought and killed all kinds of orcs. Or someone who he gave shelter to."
"So you put our odds at two-in-three?"
"No, I think it's most likely the Gru, and by a ways. Lately, they have had more numbers than the others and more ambition. As far as I know there haven't been enough Drim together to do something like this in the last hundred years."
"And the third one?"
"Artusk? Couldn't say. The region isn't quite right for them; they might have the numbers in their forests, but it's a ways for an orcish host to come. But I'd almost as soon face the Drim as the Artusk. We might have a chance with the Artusk, but they die nasty. All orcs die nasty, but the Artusk die very nasty." He drank.
Wit sat and thought. "I don't think there's much sense in your plan of storming the keep. Sacrificing your 'wasters' head on might help our odds, but to hear you tell it we either have a chance or we don't. And bringing that lot up the mountain would ruin any chance we have of not being seen…" Wit picked up the bottle. "The sergeant said that there was a back way up the mountain, and half a dozen men could take it, on foot, without being seen. How's this: we'll go up the back with the best that we've got, and send the rest, wasters and all, marching up the road. Maybe that draws their scouts enough to give the rest of us a better chance. At the first sign of trouble they can blow a horn to let us know, and run back. We'll keep on and scout the keep. If it's as we hope, and most of them died in the fighting, we'll do what we can with the rest."
"They've sharp senses, the orcs. Some of them might have odd notions, and they aren't what you'd call a sophisticated lot, but orcs aren't downright stupid. They'll know a few score peasants marching on a castle with pitchforks for the nonsense it is and batten down their perimeter. Down here, the wasters might fight the orcs off long enough for it to do some good for the next people they attack."
"So we climb a mountain on foot with six men to go against an army of orcs?"
"You're the one making us do it."
"Am I?"
"Aye. It's your damn vanity—all you magicians are the same. Won't show your face in your fine capital without you completing your mission. Because you'd rather be a corpse than live to hear those other sad farts say you failed."
Wit started to protest, but glared at the floor instead. He took another sip from Wa'llach's bottle and thought about dumping the rest out the window. He looked moodily at the dwarf.
"Sorry to interfere with your plans," he said dryly. "I am sure you can't wait to get back to, what, testing ores for the Order in a moldy warehouse? A whole castle full of orcs to murder…this is like a holiday for you."
"I'd have nothing to do with this foolishness, if you damn magicians weren't in my head."
"Oh, I'd have ridden for Tobias tomorrow, if I had come up here and found anywhere to sleep."
"Keep telling yourself that."
"I will. And I'll tell you to clear off one of the beds: your daggers will do just fine on the floor."
Wit fell asleep to the rhythmic scratching of the stone on Wa'llach's blades.
In the morning he found the sergeant, told him that he was going to go up the mountain, and asked if he could take two or three of the soldiers with him.
"There's irregulars at the inn," Wit added. "Talking it over with my companion, I think you should take charge of them, and see if you can't put them to some use if anything comes down the road. It will be important that the pass hold as long as it can, and I want you to manage it personally."
The sergeant was visibly relieved that Wit did not expect him to come up the mountain, and cheerfully let Wit have his best tracker and two best swordsmen.
Wa'llach had recruited three of the adventurers at the inn. The tracker knew two of them and seemed impressed. They left most of their supplies and their horses with the soldiers and began the trip up the mountain. Wa'llach, Wit noticed, carried his seldom-used sword over his back, along with at least two extra daggers that Wit could see. Also slung over the dwarf's back, beneath the sword, was the orcish death-stick.
It was slow going to the castle. At about midday, the army's tracker and one of the mercenaries went on ahead. Two hours later a cautious bird call sounded.
"All clear?" Wa'llach looked bemused.
"A trap?" asked Wit.
They hurried onto the mine. The smell of death reached them shortly afterwards, and grew stronger as they climbed.
One of the scouts was waiting for them at the entrance. "No survivors that we could find. Hogan and his men are dead. Some orc bodies, but not lots. Looks like they came from the south and left to the north. The other fellow is w
alking along their path to see if he can learn anything."
Wit sighed and turned to Wa'llach.
"Send a man there, and there, to keep an eye for anyone coming back." Wa'llach pointed to two raised peaks. "The rest of us, spread out and see what we can find."
Wa'llach went over to the first orc body that he could find and began to search it. Wit made his way towards the mine, not entirely sure what he was looking for. Outside of the mine lay a long row of bodies, a mixture of humans and dwarves. Wit forced himself to look closely at one of them, a very, very thin man. His throat was cut, and his face was blank. Wit looked at the man's hands. There were no injuries to suggest that he had done anything to avoid his fate. The second body was the same in every respect—emaciated, and with no signs that he had done anything to avoid having his thin throat cut—as were the third and fourth bodies. Wit began to look at the ground, but it told him nothing and he called for Wa'llach.
The dwarf looked at the scene before him, and in a moment, his expression changed to one of quiet fury.
"Did any of them try to run? Can you tell from looking at the ground?"
Wa'llach inspected the ground. "No, not that I can see. They stood in a row and got their throats cut." He spat.
Wa'llach walked around the space in front of the mine, slowly making his way to the entrance. Wit leaned on his staff, staring blankly into the dead eyes of one of the corpses.
Wa'llach suddenly spun around and bounded over to Wit's side with his sword in his hand. Several hundred feet away two orcs in gray cloaks were standing behind them. Wit dropped himself into a fighting stance, and tried to access his power.
Wa'llach only looked at the orcs for a moment before throwing down his sword. "Drop your staff," he said, removing the axe from his belt as well as all his visible daggers.
"What?"
"The bad news is we'll never win a fight with these fuckers. The good news is until we give them a reason, they won't fight us…probably."
"The Dim?"
"Drim, and no." More orcs were appearing. Some of them drew bows, and covered Wit and Wa'llach, while four of them advanced. Wa'llach turned around very slowly, showing his back to the orcs, and took a last dagger out of the back of his belt. Wit noticed that he was no longer carrying the death-stick. "Did I ever tell you about how, when it was time for me to dissolve my partnership with the liver-eaters, I turned them over to some truly creepy fuckers, call themselves the No-Clan, who make it their business to keep the peace amongst orcs?"
"You did not mention that. You said you killed them in their sleep."
"Forgetful of me. Anyway, those creepy fuckers? That's who these are."
"Why did they do this?"
"I doubt they did. Most likely, they are after the ones that did, same as we are."
"And if you're wrong?"
"We might as well get in that line and cut our own throats."
Wit let his staff fall to the ground. "Even though we're about to die," Wit said, "the fact that you managed to do something that made killing your friends in their sleep seem honorable by comparison is not lost on me. I am impressed."
The four orcs were in front of them now, led by a female who carried two swords, one of them naked in her hand.
Wa'llach stole a quick look at a stone hanging from her neck. "Well met, Marshals of the No-Clan. I am Wa'llach the Orc Friend. My companion, and master, is Wit, a Wizard of the Order."
The female leader walked up to Wa'llach and placed the tip of her blade against the mark of the Order on his cheek.
"I am Shain, Marshal of No-Clan." She smiled, very slightly. "Wa'llach the Orc Friend? It seems that the years have been unkind to you, since last you met the No-Clan. Wa'llach the Orc Friend, who the Marshals still talk of, answered to no master." She lowered the sword and turned and faced Wit. "Wizard, what is your business here?"
Wit had been trying to see if the Power could tell him anything about these creatures, or even let him control them: it seemed as if the answer was "maybe." Shain, and several of the others, were appreciably different from the rest: they had something that seemed to be an Orcish equivalent of the Gift. Knowing this made him extremely nervous; beyond that he had no insight into their minds. Perhaps, with time, he could learn to read them—in the moment, he could not.
"I was sent here by my Order," Wit said. "I did not expect to find this."
"What did you expect to find, wizard?"
"A mine. I was instructed to evaluate the metal that it produced."
Shain smiled. "Then your task is easy: this mine produces nothing."
"That being plainly the case, it is my duty to find out why. And you, Shain of No-Clan, what brings you and your people into the lands of the Alliance?"
She nodded briskly. "We were tracking bandits who disturb the peace of our lands. They had been raiding mithril strikes, but they left suddenly for this place. They had a week's start on us."
Wa'llach nodded. "If they carried metal out of here, then you might make up the ground against them even quicker. I'll help you locate their storehouses, and see if that might be the case."
"We just got here ourselves," said Wit, "and have no clear idea what happened."
"I had heard that the wizards of the Alliance were wise. What happened here seems plain enough: everyone died."
"Do you know why?" Wit asked.
She shook her head.
"I mean to find out."
The rest of the orcs had been closing in during the conversation. The archers had lowered their bows, but they were still partially drawn, and the arrows were still at the ready.
Shain called to her warriors. "We rest here. Squad One will sleep, Squad Two, secure the perimeter and search this place, bring anything of interest that you find to me. Switch in two hours."
A large ambling orc, apparently part of Squad One, spoke. "Wizard, where the masters sleep?"
"What?"
"These dead humans slaves. No being who is free grows so thin. Where the masters' quarters? After marching for nearly a week, Gogg will sleep nice for his two hours. Masters have comfortable beds, nice things."
"There were no masters. These men were Bound. They didn't need masters over them."
A murmur of revulsion went up amongst the orcs. Wit and Wa'llach suddenly exchanged glances, and both were pale.
"Where in nine hells did Hogan find so many Bound men?" asked Wa'llach.
"And who Bound them to stand in line and die?" Wit felt cold, nauseous. He turned to the orcish leader. "Shain of No-Clan, I fear that what has happened here involved a most foul magic, and is a grave threat to my Order. I hope that there will be answers in the keep. Might I go there, and carry my staff, without fear of your soldiers?"
She nodded. "Yes, but Wa'llach the Orc Friend," she stressed the last word, such that the irony was clear, "will stay unarmed."
Wit nodded. He doubted that the dwarf actually was unarmed, and he had fairly clearly found a bullet for the death-stick before hiding it. "Wa'llach will help you locate the storehouses and see if he can give you an idea of what your quarry is carrying."
Shain nodded. "Joti, go with the wizard to the keep; help him in any way that you can."
Wit picked up his staff and ran to the castle, while one of the archers followed him. On the way, they passed a group of orcs standing over the soldiers and trackers that Wit had come up with. One of them sported a black eye, but otherwise they seemed unharmed. Joti paused to relay his commander's instructions. One of the orcs tossed his head at the prisoners.
"Take them over to Shain," Wit said. "Help the orcs out with their search."
They got up slowly, and Wit spoke softy to one of them, a tracker in his forties who Wa'llach had recruited from the inn. "I don't like this, but I don't see that we have a bit of a choice. And unless they have to, I don't think these things mean to kill us. Do what their leader tells you, unless me or the dwarf tells you different."
The man nodded.
Wit and Joti cr
ossed the drawbridge and walked through the main gate into the castle. All around them were fallen soldiers, orcs, humans, and dwarves. The carnage was worse in the courtyard. Wit had thought that he had been overwhelmed by the sight and smell of death for the last several hours, but in the middle, as he stepped over a severed limb, he stopped, leaned heavily on his staff, and vomited.
He wiped his mouth and looked up; he felt, rather than saw, Joti's brief glance of contempt. Trying not to breathe, he made his way across the courtyard and into the main door of the castle.
Inside the door lay a dead dwarf, two humans, and an orc. This seemed minor compared to the courtyard, and Wit stopped to wonder what he was doing.
There had been a wizard at the mine. The labor of Bound men could be sold—but these transactions were at least noticed by the Order, and usually overseen. If Hogan had somehow acquired, through normal means, several hundred Bound beings, then Wit would probably have known about it in the first place, and certainly would have been told before being sent there. And the men at the mine had been Bound—all the signs pointed to that.
"What are you doing?"
"Thinking."
"Think where it doesn't smell so much," said Joti.
There were more dead bodies in the main hall. They climbed a staircase to the second floor and found a room with no bodies in it, which opened onto a wide balcony facing away from the courtyard, over a cliff. They sat in the fresh air.
"I have a friend," said Wit, "who Bound her father to her cat. She didn't tell me how old she was when she did it, but my best guess is she was seven or eight."
"What do you mean?"
"The men in the mine were Bound. My friend, before she was a wizard, Bound her father to a cat. So, it is possible for someone to do sophisticated Bindings without training from my Order. But I watched my friend learn magic—she could probably do what we saw at the mine now, but she could not have done it when I met her."
"What did we see at the mine?"
Wit studied the orc for the first time. He was a medium-sized orc, and young. Yet his armor, a breast plate and choker, were of an amazing quality, better than what the other orcs wore, and better than almost any armor Wit had seen in the Alliance. The sword at his side was also very fine.
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