The Game of Fates (21 page)

Durik
nodded.

“First
is that, indeed, the Kale Stone is to be found in the Dwarven Mining Outpost. 
I can sense its presence, and its longing to be found.  There is a powerful
presence there, however, that has prevented my scrying.  As I was searching for
the Kale Stone, however, the stone reached out to show me that it rests in a
treasure chamber down an old abandoned well.  I saw few orcs in the caves
around the outpost, but of the outpost itself I could only see the outer
chambers.  There were orc guards set on the outer passageway, however.  Do be
careful, Durik.  I believe one of great power has made his home there.”

Durik
nodded his understanding, looking keenly into Lady Karaba’s eyes to see if
there was anything else she might be reluctant to share.

“The
other thing you must know is that…” she looked around to ensure no one else was
listening.  “The Kale Gen has been overthrown.  Lord Karthan still lives,
however.  He and some number of his loyalists have gone north to the mountains
where they are establishing a fort.  There is much activity in the halls of my
old gen, but I could see that Khee-lar Shadow Hand has indeed taken the
throne.”  Lady Karaba paused as she struggled with her emotions.  “Durik, if
ever you were a loyal servant to my brother, you must go to him quickly.”

Durik
was stunned with the revelation.  His mind swirled with thoughts of his uncle
and aunt, his little sister and his other relatives, of the many kobolds he had
known all his life.  Even as he thought of them, he began to wonder who of all
the kobolds he had known all his life had decided to throw their lot in with
Khee-lar, and who had remained loyal.

The
implications of what Lady Karaba had told him were earth shattering for the
young leader.  His was now a company without a home gen, for he certainly would
not return to be branded a supporter of Lord Karthan and killed.  Yet to never
see the caves of his home again?  The thought was almost unbearable to him.

“My
lady,” Durik said, struggling to contain his emotions, “I will do what I can! 
We shall gain the stone and take its power to Lord Karthan and his loyalists in
the northern mountains.  I promised my loyalty to him.  I and my warriors will
hold to that vow.”

Lady
Karaba grabbed his arm, seeming to draw strength from the young leader.  Unable
to say anything more, she simply nodded and left, walking back down the trail
toward the great hall on the lake with her head down in silent contemplation.

Durik
returned to his company, determined to keep this secret to himself until they
had acquired the Kale Stone.  Though Manebrow would be upset with him for doing
so, Durik knew that his second would get no rest until he knew the status of
his lifemate and three sons.  As for the rest of the company, if they were
going to make it through this plunge into the underdark after the Kale Stone,
they had to be at their best.  A major distraction like this would only serve
to get them killed.  For now, Durik chose to carry the burden on his own.

With
his decision made, Durik took a deep breath and looked around, nodding at
Manebrow to prepare the company to march.  With Ardan’s team in the front, the
leaders’ team in the middle, including the packdogs, and Gorgon’s team bringing
up the rear, the company stood ready to depart. 

Manebrow
had never seen such a formidable looking group of kobolds, resplendent as they
were in their steel-scaled armor with weapons in hand.  On their backs each
kobold carried his or her own personal gear in their backpacks, along with
shields that were slung loosely over the packs.  Manebrow had originally
considered having the company don their wolf skin outfits, but now as he looked
at the steam escaping from under their helmets and suits of armor in the early
morning mists, he was glad he had chosen not to.

In
the front of the company, Ardan and Keryak were already moving forward to take
their places as the front pickets for the company.  As they walked, Manebrow
could see their breath coming out in heated gusts through the early morning
air.  Tohr and Kahn, the other two members of Ardan’s team, stood in silence
with their bows leaning against their shoulders.

Behind
himself and Durik, Manebrow saw the packdogs, each of them loaded almost to
capacity, standing with broad stances under the weight of the packs.  Terrim
and Kabbak stood holding the reins to the four packdogs.  Kiria and Myaliae
both were chatting lightly and patting the flanks of Kiria’s new riding dog as
they awaited the command to move out.  Next to him, Manebrow’s wolf stood with
its nose in the air, trying to sense what was on the wind this morning.  Now
that he was out of the warmth of the kennel, water droplets had already begun
to form on his fur.  Durik’s mount Firepaw stood studiously observing the
company, awaiting whatever was to happen next.

Manebrow
looked toward the rear of the company.  Gorgon and Jerrig had already deployed
about twenty paces to the rear of the company to act as rear pickets.  Leaning
against his two new javelins, the much slighter Jerrig was a stark contrast to
the much more muscular Gorgon.  While Jerrig seemed to be uncomfortable with
the weight of the new steel armor, Gorgon stood steadily, as if both a night
without sleep and the heavy armor had no impact on him.  Troka stood in the
back of the line, in front of the rear pickets, holding the reins to Gorgon’s
wolf while Arbelk rubbed the wolf’s ears.

The
sense of energy and anticipation that an early morning departure always brought
with it was less palpable among the members of the company after not having
slept at all the night before, but the look in their eyes said they were ready
to hit the trail again. 

Seeing
that all was in order, Durik nodded to Manebrow to commence the march.  Raising
one hand above his head, Manebrow gave the silent signal and the entire company
began to move out.

T
he stench of orc is a potent
scent, especially orc that hasn’t been thrown in clean water for several moons,
and orc stench is only made exponentially worse after getting involved with a
rather surly skunk at some point in the not-too-distant past.  It was this
combination of unique stenches that eventually penetrated Trallik’s groggy mind
and began to shock his senses back into a state of semi-consciousness.  Around
him, deep voices rumbled in raucous laughter, which was soothing compared to
the sharp, pungent scent oozing from the pores of the orc that Trallik discovered
was carrying him.

Coming
to some semblance of semi-consciousness, Trallik pulled his lolling tongue back
into his snout and attempted to open his eyes.  One of his two eyes reluctantly
obeyed.  The other one felt it was too swollen to open and simply took
Trallik’s command as a suggestion that it promptly ignored.

Bending
the one eye to his will, Trallik looked down at his hands.  He had been
wondering why they didn’t want to move either.  His wondering was soon rewarded
with a realization that someone had tied his hands and his feet together, and
that his body had been slung across some orc’s torso, much like a coil of
rope.  This gave Trallik a bit of pause, as he didn’t immediately remember how
he’d gotten there.

‘Oh
yes, that’s right, the big orc,’ he thought to himself after a few moments. 
His brain was pretty much intact, but the buffeting it had recently taken had
paused much of its functionality, and Trallik was having a hard time getting
everything started again.  Looking about himself, the fact that he was seeing
with heat vision registered, which meant that he was probably underground,
especially since all he could see around him was cold rock and dirt.  Looking
around a bit more, Trallik discovered that the stinky orc that was carrying him
was not the only orc there.  In fact, there seemed to be at least a couple
more, though still only one eye was obeying his wishes so it was difficult to
tell.  After a few moments of listening, he thought he heard a few distinct
voices; maybe four or five. 

‘Oh
great, captured by orcs, beaten half to death, and now my finely-tuned nose is
being pummeled with skunk must and orc sweat,’ Trallik thought to himself. 
‘Could it get any worse?  I hope they don’t eat me.’

At
that exact moment the air changed slightly and Trallik noticed that they had
entered a large chamber.  From the overwhelming stench of orc in the room,
Trallik assumed this had to be their… barracks?  The orc that was carrying
Trallik stopped and began yelling in his own guttural tongue.  After a couple
of moments another orc answered.  A moment of silence passed, then the distinct
sound of coins being passed from one hand to the other occurred somewhere close
to Trallik, and he was hoisted off of the skunk-stench orc’s back and onto the
back of an equally repulsive, yet subtly different-smelling orc.

‘Great,
now I’ve been sold to another orc.  Well, at least I’m a slave now, so they
probably won’t be eating me anytime soon,’ he thought wryly. 

The
new orc took Trallik to the back of the hall, through a crudely constructed
wooden door, and into a smaller chamber.  There he bent down and arranged a
couple of bulky things with his other arm then, standing up again, he dropped
Trallik to the ground, on top of a couple of sacks of grain.  Trallik would
have grunted, or at least groaned, but he was too sore.

The
tall orc loomed over Trallik for a few moments, then apparently after deciding
that Trallik had been beaten into submission, he reached down and cut the crude
thongs off of his hands and feet and threw them off to one side.  After a
moment or two of looking at the listless kobold, the orc poked him with one
booted foot.  Getting no noticeable reaction, the orc said something
unintelligible, presumably to someone else in the room, then turned and left.

A
distinctly feminine kobold voice answered the orc in its own guttural tongue.

While
this was all very exciting, Trallik’s body decided it had had enough excitement
for the moment and promptly slipped back into unconsciousness.

Manechar
Shaman of Fire stood with a scowl on his face considering the report that the
warrior the others had taken to calling ‘Skunk’ was giving him.  If he was to
be believed, what was obviously a magical talisman of great power, indeed the
very Kale Stone itself which was one of the five original kobold stones of
power, had been found on a lowly warrior who had been trying to join the
riff-raff that passed around here for kobold mercenaries.  Not that Skunk had
any idea of what he’d found…

“You
say he have sword mark on chest?” the powerful shaman asked the quivering mass
of muscle and armor who stood in front of him.

“Yes,
master,” Skunk answered meekly, almost repentantly.

“You
sure there no tower with eye on him or stuff?” Manechar pressed.

“Yes,
master… uh, no, master… uh, he no have tower mark.”

Skunk
was already scared, and now he was growing flustered as well.  Manechar would
use this to his advantage.  “Good.  I take stone.  I make it not angry with
Skunk for steal it.  I have slaves take away rest of stuff.”  Manechar looked
down at his desk as though he were actually bothering to paw through the
various belts, pouches, bags and knives that the orc had brought him.  After a
couple of moments, he could tell that the subtlety of his dismissal was lost on
the orc warrior.

“You
go now,” Manechar spelled it out for him.

“But,
but, monies?” Skunk finally spat out.

Manechar
considered intimidating the towering mass of brainless muscle out of any coins
for a moment, then reconsidered.  After all, this stone was the find of his
life so far, and he wanted to ensure that the rabble that composed the rank and
file of Shagra’s following continued to bring him anything interesting they
found.

“Here,
two gold coin for you,” he said as he tossed the pair of gold coins at the quivering
warrior.  “That buy you much chew weed for weeks.”

Skunk
was very grateful and showed his gratitude by groveling all the way out of the
shaman’s chamber.

Now
that Skunk was gone, a joyous smirk spread from one side of Manechar’s face to
the other.  Already he had bent the stone to his will, forcing it to tell him
who it was. 
Kamuril
it had answered,
the Kale Stone
.  Now that
he was alone, Manechar took the stone in both hands.  It seemed to almost
squirm in the grip of the magic wielder.

“Tell
me you secrets,” Manechar hissed as he gripped the stone tightly, forcing his
will on the stone as it tried to resist.  Suddenly, all resistance disappeared
and the stone seemed to lay itself bare before Manechar’s powers.  Ceasing his
struggling, Manechar cast his consciousness around inside the stone, but
strangely enough there seemed to be nothing there.  It was empty… or perhaps it
was hiding.

“Play
hide and seek, eh?” he muttered to no one in particular.  “Yes, I play you
game.”  With that Manechar refocused himself and drove his will deeper into the
stone.

Trallik
had never really developed much of an affection for dogs, especially the yappy,
licky variety which some of his home gen’s patrol guard warriors had taken to
breeding to serve as watchdogs out on their gen’s picket line.  Besides, they
didn’t taste all that good either.  It was perhaps because of that lack of
affection that he wrinkled his snout and swatted at what he thought was a dog
trying to lick his nose.

“Now,
now.  Let me clean the blood off,” the distinctly female kobold voice he’d
heard before slipping into unconsciousness said as someone gently pushed his
hand away from his snout.

Trallik
woke up with a start and was pleasantly surprised when both eyes actually
decided to open, partway at least.  He was laying on his back on something
soft, hay or straw he thought, and was looking directly up into… Trallik
blushed and turned his head away from the female kobold who was leaning over
him trying to wipe something off of the other side of his snout.  The cut of
her tunic was certainly less modest than those of the females in his home gen.

She
didn’t let on whether or not she had noticed the embarrassment brought on by
how close her chest was to his snout, but mercifully she sat back and stopped
trying to get that last spot of blood off the far side of his snout.

“Well,
hello.  Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said in a voice whose
timbre was almost sultry, yet whose inflection was perkier than perhaps anyone
else Trallik had ever heard, the contrast being only enhanced by the fact that
his own perkiness was probably at a lifetime low at the moment.

Trallik
painfully raised himself up on one elbow.  “Unh… Hi,” he eventually spat out
through a swollen face, several loose teeth, and a partially strangulated
throat.

There
kneeling next to him was one of the prettiest females he had ever seen, her
smaller, smooth scales were a subtly darker shade than his, her dark eyes were
large, deep, and full of… was that interest in him?  Suddenly, almost as if
she’d noticed what she was emoting, her eyes began to reflect a deep concern.

Though
Trallik tried not to notice, the sharp features of her face stood in sharp
contrast to the gentle curves of her rather trim feminine form.  It was enough
to distract the young warrior horribly.  For a moment Trallik almost thought
he’d died and received a much better reward from the Creator than he deserved,
though the pounding of his head confirmed he was still very much alive.  The
moment was only accentuated by the involuntary movements of her tail that lay
curled around her legs, the tip twitching nervously, revealing her hidden
anticipation at his waking.

Suddenly
realizing how horrible he must look, and feeling dizzy from the combination of
her beauty and the effort of trying to sit up, he fell onto his side then
rolled onto his back, groaning as he ended up back where he had been.

“Oh,
don’t get up,” her perky, yet sultry-sweet voice pled with him.  “You’re in no
condition.  Trikki’s here to take care of you.  Here, I have water.  Let me put
this nice, cool cloth on that swollen eye of yours.”

Smiling
for no apparent reason, Trallik lay still for some time as she gently caressed
him with the cool, damp cloth.  At some point he drifted off into a deep, dreamless
sleep.

Shagra
considered Mushrat’s report with an almost idle indifference.  The summons from
his father had been clear,
Come to big bird head rock
.  The fact that
the shaman his father had sent to babysit him and his warriors didn’t want to
make the climb all the way down the Wall and back up again as soon as Shagra’s
father decided to move south didn’t really bother Shagra.