The morning passed swiftly. The companions were back in their regular formation, only this time accompanied by the four wyverns winging so high above that they appeared no larger than birds in Kyran’s vision.
It took them the better part of the day to retrace their steps back to the site of the worg ambush. As they neared the cul-de-sac, Adra halted the party with a raised hand.
“What is it, Adra?” Kyran asked.
The wolven scout was crouched down, inspecting some scuff marks that seemed all but meaningless to Kyran. “Someone has been here.”
“Ogres?” asked Mirien, fingering her blades and scanning the surrounding peaks. Adra did not answer. While matters between the pair had not devolved again to open hostility, there was a renewed and unspoken tension between the two women.
“Adra?” Kyran prompted.
“It was an ogre warband. Gnarok’s, I’d guess,” Adra said eventually.
“How long ago?” asked Gaesin worriedly.
“It’s not clear,” said Adra, standing up. “But I’d assume a day maybe.”
Kyran bowed his head, thinking. This was good news, he realised. He had been worried that tracing back the hunting packs’ path would lead the party on a circuitous journey through the mountains and perhaps not to Gnarok at all. Now they could possibly recover the rope much sooner, perhaps in even less than a day. “Can you track them?” he asked.
Adra smiled at him, her fangs gleaming. “I can.” She pointed northeast. “They headed that way.”
✽✽✽
They did not catch the ogre warband that day. Or even the next. In fact, the party’s pursuit of the ogres turned out to be nearly as gruelling as their first days in the inner mountains.
Several times, Adra lost the ogres’ trail altogether. Despite Gnarok’s seeming arrogance during their previous confrontation, his warband was cautious and took pains to disguise their tracks. Yet for all the care the ogres took, they could not account for Kyran’s worg-self’s sense of smell. Whenever Adra lost the war band’s trail, Kyran shifted into worg-form and led the chase.
But even though the party seemed in no danger of losing the ogres’ trail, Kyran’s concern grew as the chase drew out. They had been on the ogres’ trail for three days already, and as fast as the party travelled, they were still no closer to catching the ogres. Kyran had already resigned himself to not catching the ogres until they stopped.
Each day took them farther northeast, deeper into the mountains, and closer to winter. How much longer could the chase go on? Kyran wondered. And would they find the ogres before winter?
During the chase, the wyverns were left to fend for themselves. Concerned about what winter would bring, Kyran had not wanted to eat through the party’s stores by feeding the four large predators. With Aiken’s help, Kyran sent the beasts out to hunt for themselves. Thankfully, the wyverns were used to the terrain and were able to provide for themselves despite the mountains’ barrenness.
One of his only consolations was that wherever the ogres were going, they travelled along the base of the Ruiven escarpment, never diverting far from the sheer cliff wall. Once they retrieved the rope, he reassured himself, it would only be a short hop up the escarpment to escape the mountain’s grasp.
Another benefit of the prolonged chase was the rapid progression of Kyran’s civilian training. After careful thought, Kyran had learned three new civilian abilities: commander’s gift, magister’s gift, and teleport rings.
New ability learned: commander’s gift (provides vassals with a long-lasting but minor buff to their body attributes.).
New ability learned: magister’s gift (provides vassals with a long-lasting but minor buff to their essence regeneration).
Commander’s gift and magister’s gift provided small but appreciable buffs to his vassals and companions. Sadly, the spell’s effects could not be applied to himself or Mirien.
Kyran has cast commander’s gift on Aiken (duration: 16 hours, buff: +3.2% body attributes).
Kyran has cast magister’s gift on Gaesin (duration: 2 days, buff: +9.6% essence regeneration).
New ability learned: teleport rings (creates a teleport ring by inscribing a location with a unique magical signature that works in conjunction with the travel spell).
Remaining: 0 civilian AP.
Teleport rings was an interesting spell that increased the utility—and decreased the danger—of the novice spell travel (self). Making use of the spell, Kyran could travel between two teleportation rings as fast as he could teleport. Unfortunately, he could only have two rings in existence at any one time, and the distance limitation of the travel spell still applied.
Yet as useful as Kyran expected all three of his new civilian abilities to be in future, he had not learned them for their immediate utility, but to speed up his civilian training. By casting and recasting commander’s gift, magister’s gift, teleport rings, and improved scrying while they pursued the ogres, Kyran was able to advance his civilian level swiftly—to the point that after the first three days of the chase, he gained six levels.
Kyran has reached civilian level 30.
Remaining: 24 Civilian SP, 6 AP.
He made immediate use of the civilian skill points the Game awarded him to maximise his governor and feudal skills to the no-penalty skill cap of twenty.
Kyran’s base skill in governor has increased to 20. Effective skill: 14.4.
Base skill in feudal lord has increased to 1. Allowed vassals: 28.
You have learned the feudal lord skill!
The feudal lord skill increases the number of minions and vassals a player may bind directly.
Kyran’s base skill in feudal lord has increased to 20. Effective skill: 14.4. The number of vassals you may bind to your service has increased to 165.
Remaining: 0 Civilian SP, 6 AP.
✽✽✽
On the fourth day, the advance party of Kyran and Adra found the warband. Crouched upon an overlooking ledge, Kyran—in worg-form—and Adra observed the ogres from a safe distance.
Gnarok’s warband had finally stopped, having reached their base in the mountains. The ogres’ camp was nothing like what Kyran had expected. There were far more ogres inside the huddle of tents and caves than he had anticipated—and there were children, too.
His ears drooped unhappily. It was clear that the camp in the small valley below did not just house Gnarok’s warband, but an entire tribe, if an obviously poor and near-destitute one.
The tribe’s tents, which looked like they had weathered the mountain’s storms for years, were tattered and riddled with holes, while the short boundary wall encircling the perimeter was cobbled together from loose rocks and breached in multiple places.
And the children, Kyran saw, with sharp grief, were rail thin and too lethargic to move in the setting sun. Though it was not only the children that were half-starved. Many of the older ogres and women looked in worse shape.
This is a tribe, Kyran realised, teetering on the edge of extinction. A low growl escaped his throat as he stared at banner of the six-clawed talon fluttering in the camp’s centre. How could even the goblin-god let his subjects suffer like this?
Adra glanced at him. “How many do you see in the camp?” she whispered.
His gaze roved over the camp again. “Two hundred?” he said. It seemed that but for Gnarok’s war band, forty-two ogres all told, the rest of the camp was made of women, children, and elderly.
“What do we do?” asked Adra, her voice glum and unhappy. It was not just the numbers that concerned Adra, he knew, but the women and children.
“I don’t know, Adra.” He reached through the battlegroup to Gaesin, some three hundred metres back, “Gaesin, halt the party. We’ve found the ogres. Adra and I are investigating further.”
He turned back to the camp and continued to study it, his head titling to the side as he noticed oddities. Between the pitched tents, his sharp worg eyes spotted empty spaces where the ground was riddled with deep hol
es. Holes meant to hold tent anchors? he wondered. He counted. There were half as many missing tents as there were pitched tents.
So, some of the tribe was gone. Dead perhaps? “Alright, we’ve seen enough. Let’s—”
The long, mournful howl of a worg broke the silence. Kyran and Adra tensed. The pair’s greatest concern in scouting out the camp was being detected by worgs.
Knowing only too well himself the powerful senses of the beasts, Kyran was uncomfortably aware that he and Adra stood little chance of escaping discovery if the tribe still had any worgs remaining. Before creeping close to the camp, he had taken pains to ascertain that the tribe did not.
So where had the howl come from?
“Kyran?” came Gaesin’s voice anxiously through the battlegroup. “Did you hear that?”
“We did, but there are no worgs here,” he assured Gaesin. He peered down into the camp again. Most of the ogres ignored the worg’s howl, but some stiffened and gazed furtively east before returning to whatever they had been about.
He exchanged a meaningful glance with Adra. Was there another ogre camp nearby?
✽✽✽
“We should attack the camp,” said Mirien.
The party was settled in a small crevice two kilometres away from the ogre tribe while they supped on cold rations and debated on how to proceed.
“How can you suggest such a thing, Mirien? There are children in that camp!” said Gaesin, aghast.
Since the events at the wyvern lair, the pair’s friendship had been restored. Kyran still did not know what had prompted Mirien’s change of heart that day, but whatever it was, it had also mended things between her and Gaesin, for which Kyran was glad.
But though things between Mirien and the party had seemingly returned to normal, Kyran sensed a new hesitancy in the whiesper. The confidence she had always exuded before appeared brittle now, a fragile mask, close to shattering.
He had not forgotten Adra’s suspicions either. Even though he knew Adra was convinced of Mirien’s treachery, he was more doubtful. He could hardly see what she stood to gain.
But more than anything else, it was Aiken’s own behaviour that convinced him. Mirien had taken to spending her time with the jade bear and almost seemed to draw comfort from him.
Aiken, Kyran knew, liked Mirien, and notwithstanding Kyran’s many hints on the matter, the bear had steadfastly refused to break the whiesper’s confidence and share with his bond-fellow whatever was bothering her.
Kyran sighed. He had hoped matters between Mirien and the party would have simplified since the wyvern lair, but it seemed that her place in the party was still unresolved.
“I do not say that we should harm the children, Gaesin,” said an exasperated Mirien, drawing Kyran’s attention back to the conversation. “We must take care not to injure them,” she added, “but that tribe is the enemy, Xetil’s sworn followers. We cannot fail to act for fear of harming the non-combatants.”
“Some of the children may die!” exclaimed Gaesin.
“They may,” replied Mirien. She stared hard at Gaesin. “But make no mistake, if we succeed in fleeing from the ogres, that will likely be their fate anyway—at Xetil’s own hands.” The half-elf turned away, unable to refute Mirien’s words.
Kyran let the two argue and stared out of the crevice at the coiled forms of the wyverns. The clutch was huddled together for warmth. Over the last four days, they had faithfully accompanied the party without trouble.
Kyran had restored his psionic bonds with the creatures twice over, both times without problems. In fact, it seemed to Kyran that his bond with the wyverns has become easier to re-forge with passing time. Certainly, the beasts’ loyalty to him had grown. Not even the wyvern bull baulked at his commands anymore.
“…and we should draw out the warband from the camp before attacking,” Gaesin was saying.
Kyran listened with only half an ear, though, his mind worrying over what Mirien had said earlier. Will Xetil really punish the tribe if it fails to stop me? He ran in his hands through Aiken’s coat, his thoughts troubled.
“That will be dangerous,” said Mirien firmly. “If we give them forewarning of our attack, Gnarok may summon aid from the second camp or destroy the climbing cable—if they have not done so already.”
Gaesin shook his head stubbornly, denying Mirien’s words. “Adra,” he said, turning to the wolven, “what do you think?”
Adra was quiet so long, Kyran thought she would not answer. “Mirien is right,” she said, her voice heavy with reluctance. “We have to attack without warning and risk whatever casualties may result.”
Gaesin’s eyes widened and turned pleadingly to Kyran.
Kyran returned his attention to the conversation. His mind was not on the immediate question troubling the trio, but on another matter entirely. “Is it true?” Kyran asked Adra softly.
Adra’s brows drew down. “Kyran?”
“Will Xetil slaughter the tribe if they fail to stop us?” All three looked away, their silence answer enough.
“Is there no way we can save them? The children at least?” asked Kyran, his words dropping like stones into the hush.
Mirien looked up and met Kyran’s eyes unflinchingly. “How, Kyran?” she asked sorrowfully. “Even counting the wyverns, our party numbers less than ten. Assuming we kill Gnarok’s entire warband, that still leaves over a hundred ogres for us to contend with. There is no way we could feed, much less protect, such a number, always supposing they were well disposed to our cause in the first place. Remember, they are all likely to be fanatical supporters of Xetil.”
Kyran turned towards Adra, seeking her advice. She sighed. “I agree with Mirien’s assessment,” she said.
Kyran glanced at Gaesin. But even the half-elf looked away. He had no answer either.
“How would Xetil do it?” he asked finally. Gaesin, Mirien, and Adra looked at him blankly. “How would he kill the tribe?”
Adra and Mirien shared a look, then by some unspoken agreement, Adra fielded the question. “Xetil is one of the more vindictive of the gods. If this were Auriel or even Zarayla, the tribe’s failure might be forgiven. With Xetil, there is no chance of that.”
If nothing else, the certainly in Adra’s voice convinced Kyran of the truth of her words.
“The goblin-god will send a dozen companies of divine soldiers,” Adra continued, “and even champions if required, to hunt down every last member of the tribe.”
Kyran dropped his head into hands, thinking over Adra’s words. He thought by now he understood the gods’ depravity. Yet still he’d underestimated the depths to which they would sink. He raised his head. “Then we will scout out the second ogre camp.”
His words were met by brief silence. “Why, Kyran?” asked Mirien eventually.
Kyran met her eyes. “This entire journey through the mountains has been troubling. You said yourself, there was no reason for Xetil to have forces stationed in the mountains. So where did Gnarok’s warband come from? And surely even Xetil wouldn’t send women and children on a hunt.”
Mirien opened her mouth to respond, but Kyran held out a hand. “Hear me out, please. That tribe must have been here before we entered the inner mountains. Both the bedraggled nature of their camp and their half-starved appearance supports the notion. Then there is the matter of the missing tents, the second camp, and Gnarok’s unusual youth for the position of chief.” He shook his head. “Before you ask, I don’t know what to make of all these facts. But some instinct is telling me there is more to this matter than we are seeing.” He paused. “I need to be certain before I act.”
“We will be courting unnecessary danger,” warned Adra. “The second camp has worgs. It will be no easy feat to avoid their detection. And with every passing day, the chance of us being trapped in the mountain for winter increases.”
Mirien was nodding. “Everything Adra says is true. And I’m still not certain what you hope to accomplish by scouting the second camp.”
/> “I know the tribe’s fate is not in our care,” he said quietly. “I know the ogres have done nothing to earn our goodwill.” He paused, sighing deeply. “But neither can I ignore the peril our presence—my presence—in the mountain has brought to them.” He laughed bitterly. “Perhaps I’m being foolish. But if there is a chance to save the tribe from Xetil’s wrath, I want to take it.”
“No, Kyran,” Mirien murmured, her eyes shining as she turned away from his gaze. “That’s not foolish at all.”
✽✽✽
Sara awoke with a start. “Champion, Champion! Come quick. The commander needs you.”
Pushing back the covers of her sleeping bag, Sara sat up quickly. Her tent was still dark, but through the slits in the tent’s canvas, she could make out the grey blurriness of early morning, and outside the closed tent flap, the shadow of a paladin shifting restlessly from foot to foot. “What is it?” she called.
“The barrier, milady. It has fallen.”
Excitement and terror set her stomach churning as she rose smoothly to her feet. Fully dressed already—following the commander’s example, Sara had taken to sleeping armed and armoured—she ducked out of the tent. She cast a swift glance upwards and confirmed that no shimmering haze marred the morning sky.
“Are the undead attacking?” she asked, her voice even and betraying no slip of fear.
“I don’t know, Champion. The commander has called the company to order. The lines are assembling even now.”
Sara nodded curtly and strode off, the paladin following in her shadow. Dodging between running soldiers, she swiftly made her way to Ruben’s side. The commander stood on the re-erected camp fortifications and gazed out into the city.
She saw the paladin formations were half-formed and realised the commander must have summoned her immediately. A pleased tingle passed through her. At least he is beginning to take me more seriously, she thought.
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