Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)

by Luke Chmilenko

  “Yes, of course!” the woman replied excitedly as she finished rushing towards the fallen arakissi’s side, who hadn’t moved since she’d collapsed. “But it has to be quick. This place isn’t safe for us to stay for too long. The slavemasters often patrol through here looking to catch lazy slaves.”

  “Then I shall see what I can do,” Theia said as she bent down to look at the unconscious lizardwoman, the tension in both of the slaves visibly deflating the second they saw her hand begin to glow with healing magic. “But in the meantime, I am certain that my friends have questions for you both, about what we just saw as well as your time with the orcs. The more that you’re able to tell us, the better that we will be able to help you all.”

  “Ask us anything,” the woman stated in an earnest tone, her attention turning to glance at the man and then back towards me. “My name is Kara, and this here is Cline. We’ve been slaves here for…I’m not sure how long anymore. The days have started to blur together far too closely now. Months at least.”

  “I understand,” I replied, going on to introduce myself as well as the others before beginning my questioning. “I know that there isn’t enough time to even begin to cover everything, but why don’t we start with what we just saw happen here with the orcs? We heard them accuse that golden-furred beastkin about doing something to one of the plants here.”

  “His name is Garr, and his people are known as the gronn,” Kara answered, despite shaking her head. “Apparently, they’re from elsewhere on the continent here, somewhere farther to the north. In either case, though, I’m afraid I have no idea what could have happened to cause the orc to get so angry at him. Normally, they let him do whatever he wants to here because he’s an earthspeaker, or rather a druid, as we call them in Eberia. It’s because of him and the others of his kind that this garden exists in the first place. All I heard was shouting and then two of the slavemasters arrived dragging him and Arcturus into this square at the same time as Zua and I were passing through it. We were just caught up in it by chance.”

  “I see,” I replied with a nod, inferring that Arcturus must have been the name of the other grey-furred gronn. “I heard him say something about checking the plant for blight. Would that have caused a problem?”

  “I don’t see why,” she said, once more shaking her head. “It’s been affecting whole chunks of crops so far throughout the other gardens. If Garr would be doing anything, it would be to make sure that it didn’t spread any further. Because if he didn’t, well…”

  “Then it would be his head on the line,” I finished after the woman trailed off, guessing the obvious end to poor performance as well as taking note that this wasn’t the only garden that the orcs had apparently cultivated.

  “Possibly,” Kara said, her head turning as Zua let out a faint groan in response to Theia’s healing efforts. “You heard what the slavemaster said, right? That he was Needed?”

  “We did,” I stated with a nod, remembering the emphasis that had been placed on the word. “Does that mean something in particular among the orcs?”

  “It’s a rank of importance a slave has to them,” the woman went onto explain. “A Needed slave is almost untouchable by all except the highest of status orcs, oftentimes because they have skills that are rare or incredibly useful to them.”

  “Such as being a druid,” I said with a nod, the cold part of me understanding the value that such a slave would have if one needed to grow an obviously magical garden such as the one we were in.

  “Right,” Kara confirmed. “But then, because of him being Needed, he can’t be punished in the same way as lesser slaves, at least not as easily. So instead, others would be punished—if not killed—in his place to ensure that he works more…diligently.”

  “Then that’s why the slavemaster was going to have his friend whipped in front of him,” Constantine stated, the rogue having shifted over to join our conversation. “Because he couldn’t punish him directly.”

  “That’s right,” she said, her eyes dropping down at the thought. “But like I said, I don’t know why the orcs would have taken offense to him tending to one of the plants. It is his job. Also with how concerned they’ve been with the blight’s spread, I would think they would have welcomed his efforts to try and make sure it isn’t afflicting more of the crops.”

  “That is assuming what he was doing in the first place was indeed checking for this blight you speak of,” Berwyn interjected. “Perhaps whatever it is that he dropped and then you picked up, Cline, during their scuffle with the orcs would shed some light on what he was truly doing?”

  There was a brief pause as everyone turned their attention towards the man, who promptly froze under the weight of the combined gaze.

  “Wait, what? What are you talking about?” Kara asked as she glanced over towards Berwyn with a frown and then her companion. “Cline, what is he talking about? Did Garr give something to you?”

  “No,” he stated in a firm voice as he stared at the monk with a blank expression. “I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

  “Really?” Berwyn replied without missing a beat. “I could have sworn I saw the golden-furred man toss something wooden back towards you the instant that his companion struck the orc before him. I could also have sworn that I saw you grab it the instant you saw it and stuff it into your front pocket there while everyone was looking at the fighting.”

  “Then maybe you should get your eyes—” the man started to say only to find himself interrupted by Kara before he could finish speaking.

  “Cline, what are you doing?” she hissed in an angry tone. “These people are here to help us! If there is something Garr gave you, you should tell them! This is our chance to finally get away from here!”

  “You trust too easily, Kara,” the man replied stubbornly as he glared at us. “We don’t know who these people even are, despite what they say. They’ve just shown up out of nowhere, and you’re ready to run off with them. Did you ever think that this could be a trick of some kind to get us in trouble? Or even killed? For starters, how do you think they all even got here, all the way this far into the garden in the first place?”

  “By going the long way,” I answered, having stayed silent during Berwyn’s accusation, the man having clearly caught something I missed amid the chaos. “We traveled straight through the forest up from Aldford.”

  “Through…the forest?” the man repeated slowly an angry expression appearing on his face as he shook his head forcefully. “No. That’s a lie. Traveling through the forest is impossible, there are too many monsters scattered through there. Enough so that the orcs don’t even dare to pass through it.”

  “Well, we happen to be a little braver and tougher than the orcs,” I told the man. “But that said, I completely understand you being hesitant to tell us anything given what you must have endured since you were captured, and we won’t force you to talk to us if you don’t want to. If you want to turn around and leave right now, I promise you we won’t try and stop you.”

  “Hrm. In exchange for what?” Cline grunted in response, his head moving to indicate both Kara and Zua. “You keeping them?”

  “In exchange for nothing,” I assured, shaking my head. “If none of you want to help us, you certainly don’t have to. But that’s not going to change what we’re here to do. We’re here to hurt the orcs and free what slaves we can.

  “But,” I continued while motioning towards the garden around us, “having some help, both in understanding what you’ve all been through and telling us what exactly is going on here, would go a long way toward making sure we hit them where it hurts most.”

  “If nothing else, at least listen to our story,” Theia added from beside the lizardwoman’s side who had yet to respond to her treatment. “You must have noticed by now that the orcs have moved to attack someone. It’s Aldford that they’re attacking, and we’re barely managing to hold them back. If we can’t figure out a way to stop them, they’ll run right over us and continu
e straight onto Coldscar and Eberia.”

  “Those are a lot of honeyed words,” Cline said, the suspicious expression on his face staying fixed as he glared between Theia and me. But partway through his sentence, Zua let out a series of body-wracking coughs that caused him to trail off, followed by his demeanor suddenly softening.

  “Fine,” he said in a soft voice as the lizardwoman fell unconscious once again, causing Theia to fuss over her with renewed effort. “I’ll listen to what you have to say. Maybe you can all convince me you are who you say you are. But Kara is right, we can’t stay here. Especially not with Zua being so sick. We need to move her somewhere safer where she won’t be discovered.”

  “Lead the way,” I replied without a moment’s hesitation, glad that we were finally able to get through to the man. “You know this place better than us.”

  Receiving a simple grunt in response to my words, we all moved to follow the man, with Cassius being elected to carry the frail arakissi with us. Setting out from the square, we all backtracked partially the way that we’d come, Cline leading us southward towards the garden’s edge where it butted up against the forest. After reaching it, he turned to lead us westward along its border, citing that it was unlikely that any of the orc slavemasters would be patrolling this far given how distant it was from where the bulk of the slaves were assigned to work today. Taking the man at his word, we continued along the garden’s edge for nearly a half-hour before we finally reached the destination that he had picked out for us.

  But, of course, given what that destination ended up being, we began to smell it long before we arrived.

  “Ugh, are you sure there isn’t somewhere else we can hide?” Constantine asked, barely managing to stifle a retch as Cline led us behind a truly massive mound of compost that had been piled in a line on the garden’s edge, a wave of both heat and rot wafting over us. “This place smells terrible!”

  “Which is why none of the slavemasters would willingly come here to check for hiding slaves,” Cline replied as we all stopped in a patch of forest hidden a couple dozen yards behind the decomposing mass. “The smell offends them and tends to keep them at bay. We should be safe here long enough for her to finish looking over Zua…and for you all to say whatever it is you need to say.”

  “Then we won’t waste any time,” I said, waiting only until Zua was taken care of and back under Theia’s care before I started to tell both Kara and Cline our full story, beginning with how we’d first noticed that Aldford’s settlers weren’t arriving on the schedule that had been promised. “It all started almost two months ago, when we finally realized that something was wrong…”

  Going into detail for the next quarter-hour, I, with the help of the others, explained to both Kara and Cline the extent of our conflict with the Dread Crew. Beginning first with our surprise attack on the Grey Devils at the beginning of March and continuing onwards through Carver’s initial ambush at the Irovian tower and the events in the Twilight Grove, we left little out for them. Or at least we did with regards to the bigger picture. There was simply too much for us to cover to go into great detail about our experiences and not enough time to do so. Instead, we focused our efforts on what we felt would resonate with the pair the deepest, telling them of our war with both the Dread Crew and the orcs thus far.

  “What was her name?” the man asked me in a quiet voice, breaking the temporary silence that had fallen once I’d finished my story. “The woman you spoke to in that abandoned camp, I mean.”

  “I’m sorry, but we didn’t have a chance to find out,” I replied softly with a shake of my head. “She…ended up passing before we could get far enough to ask.”

  “Ah, damn,” he cursed, our conversation falling silent as he looked at the ground mournfully, his two companions following suit. “That’s…too bad. She deserved to be remembered after what she’d been through. So did the others with her.”

  “When we first fought those monsters, we didn’t know that the orcs were putting people inside them,” I said as gently as I could manage. “It wasn’t until after our first battle with them that we realized what they’d done, but by then it was too late.”

  “Neither did we the first time that we saw them,” Cline replied softly, a haunted look crossing his face as an unwelcome memory came to mind. “But it wasn’t long before we heard the warnings from the other slaves…and saw how those who were too troublesome happened to disappear, never to be seen again. Then there was one day…”

  “If what you say is true, their death was a mercy,” Kara stated simply as her partner’s voice trailed off, whatever memory he was trying to explain refusing to come out. “An end to their suffering. After what we’ve all seen and been forced to suffer through here, none of us would, or even could, ever hold such an act against you.”

  “No, that we certainly would not,” Cline whispered in agreement, the man going on to pause for a second as he glanced at the ground in thought before his eyes worked their way back up to mine, offering me a searching look. “What did you do with their bodies…afterward?”

  “We buried them together in our town’s graveyard along with our other fallen,” I replied, meeting the man’s gaze. “We had no way of knowing what traditions they may have lived by or beliefs they followed, but we tried to honor them as best as we could by ours.”

  “I…believe you,” Cline said, nodding slowly at me. “Thank you.”

  There was a brief silence as the man glanced over towards Kara sitting beside him, the two of them sharing some sort of unspoken communication. Lasting for a second, whatever message passed between them resulted in the man letting out a sigh and turning his head back towards us.

  “After hearing your story, I think I might have been mistaken in thinking that you really weren’t here to help us,” Cline said, his eyes slowly scanning over each of us as he spoke. “And I am sorry for that. This place here…twists everything if you’re here long enough. Makes it hard to trust anyone at all, because you just don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

  “I can only imagine,” I replied. “But that’s why we really need your help more than anything right now. I don’t know what the orcs and the Dread Crew are planning here, let alone how to get around this place or where the city even is, but if we don’t stop them soon, we might not get another chance.”

  “I agree,” the man stated. “Which is why you need to talk to Aryana. She’ll be able to tell you everything that you need to know about how best to hurt the orcs here…and what exactly Garr was up to.”

  “Wait, what are you talking about, Cline?” Kara asked after the man finished speaking, turning to look at him with a strange expression. “Aryana is dead. She was killed weeks ago…wasn’t she?”

  “Ah, no,” Cline replied, shaking his head at the woman. “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly?” I repeated in a curious voice, wondering where exactly this conversation had taken a turn to. “What does that mean? And who is she in the first place?”

  “You’ll have to get it from her,” Cline replied simply, shrugging his shoulders as he spoke. “I’ve said probably all I should say about that.”

  “Uh, okay,” I said, not sure what to make of the vague reply but happy to have made some sort of progress. “What happens now then? You take us to her?”

  “Don’t have to,” the man answered, his attention turning to look out into the forest around us. “She’s already here. Or she should be if I gave her enough time.”

  “Wait, what?” I demanded, alarm shooting through me as I instinctively moved to turn my head in the direction that I saw Cline staring in. But no sooner did I start moving did I hear a woman’s voice suddenly call out from the opposite direction behind me, and instead, I twisted back in the opposite direction.

  “That was plenty of time, Cline, thank you,” she said, the voice seemingly coming from an empty patch of forest as it spoke, at least at first.

  But as I fixated on what I thought was the source of the voice
, I saw a dark-haired half-elf suddenly appear amid the forest foliage, her skin and clothes visibly shimmering as a layer of magical camouflage peeled away to reveal her. Nor was she the only one that appeared, as five other figures also appeared behind her in a similar fashion, the group consisting of an eclectic mixture of humans, elves, arakissi, and even a single gronn. All of them were holding a variety of makeshift wooden weapons in their hands, though none were being held in a threatening manner.

  “And while we’re on the subject of time,” the woman continued as she glanced at all of us, her voice gaining a harder edge. “You’re all fucking late. We expected you all to come looking for us weeks ago.”

  Chapter 39

  “What? Cat got your tongues?” the half-elf woman asked as we all stared at her blankly, her unexpected appearance causing us all to scramble and react to how effortlessly she had managed to sneak up on us. “Please don’t tell me you’re the best that Fredric was able to find if a little magic trick like that renders you all speechless.”

  “You…you know Aldwin?” Constantine was the first to reply, managing to shake off his surprise the fastest as we all turned to face the new arrivals, our hands reaching instinctively for our weapons.

  “Well, aren’t you a bright light,” she replied back with a snort despite holding her hands before her to indicate that she wasn’t a threat. “Did you figure that part out from when I mentioned him by name? Or was it something else that tipped you off?”

  “I, uh, well…” the rogue stammered, obviously flustered by the woman’s response, his head turning to look at me. “Lyr?”

  “I take it then that you must be Aryana,” I replied, taking Constantine’s cue as I finished my quick inspection of all of the new arrivals. As I did, I noticed that they were all similarly dressed as Cline and Kara, wearing nearly worn-out clothing that had long since seen better days. But despite that similarity between them, there was one notable thing that they were all missing, its absence sticking out like a brightly lit beacon.