Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 14

Nabid snorted, his wraith-like movements passing him unnoticed over the low outer curtain, with its steep shingled rake and broad parapets. The curtain walls of the castle were ten paces wide, with a walkway atop half as wide set down the spine of the wall such that those walking the curtain wall could defend or attack either side with ease. Even in broad daylight, the bound daemon had the fiendish knack of being where mortals simply weren't looking -- an absolutely vital nuance of his nature that Saran meant to employ if Hitsuyo insisted too greatly of whatever service she was certain to demand.

Regicide was nasty business, and Esmeray Saran had no designs on the seat of Tsuro -- not that she could, given the bindings from the Tower... it would likely be seen as a provocation, and whatever protection she still enjoyed would, at the least, be forfeit. No, she would not kill Soraya, if the monarch proved unreasonable... but she could certainly cost the crown of Tsuro a heavy ransom for Saran's liberty -- in both blood and coin, if she deemed it.

Saran was led without ceremony into the royal estate, a three-tiered manor in the wood and silk style of her homeland across the Narrow Sea. It complimented the curtain walls well, owing that both were newer constructions since the time of Hitsuyo's ascension to the throne over the House of Orso nigh on two decades ago. The Keep, and many of the older stone buildings of Tsuro, were of the local style -- all slate or terracotta, with masonry and imported timber from the Serpent Plains (the regional name for the area around Renks Cairn).

They passed the stone banquet hall, with its vaulted throne room, abutting the Keep and acting as a footrest for the royal estate on the terrace above... climbing the switch-back ramps and broad steps carved of stone slabs three paces by two. The fragrance of hyacinths washed outward, as though the royal apartments themselves were breathing on them in greeting. Saran liked it not one bit, but made pains not to show her displeasure. Soraya Hitsuyo still considered her an agent of the Tower, if nothing else.

The daemon's shadow grazed her own, as he clambered noiselessly onto the second tier of the manor house proper -- some great gray heron seemed to be leaping from the rooftop and spreading its wings as one of the soldiers glanced upward.

"Welcome, guest." Ser Majesty's herald, a crystal-voiced stripling of youth -- gaudily clad and elegantly coifed, with painted face and hands -- gestured broadly from the entrance, braced by two severe-looking soldiers in black haramaki, with fanged devices on their mempo giving their black-brown eyes a deadlier cast than they had any right.

One, on her left -- guarding the herald's right flank -- bore tattoos in an amalgamated style, shackling some unknown forces to the skin, flesh, and bone.

If anything goes wrong, kill that one first. she instructed to Nabid, giving a brief description of the elite soldier's build, markings, and apparel.

Can I not just kill him anyway? Nabid's "voice" was full of giddy, savage amusement, and Saran was filled with the queasy sensation of a cat playing with the remains of a particularly large rat.

The herald turned, clasping their hands inside their wide sleeves and leading Saran further into the royal apartments, across highly polished wooden floors and through three doorways to a sitting room covered in tatami mats that seemed to be the source of the hyacinth fragrance.

Esmeray Saran sat where directed, on the floor to one side of a low table set with a silk cover.

Cha. She wants to make me sit through a cha ceremony. Saran mentally rolled her eyes, exasperated with the monarch's pretenses.

"Ser Majesty joins you." The herald bowed out through a segment of the wall that turned out to be another door, as the far wall slid open to reveal Soraya Hitsuyo in all her glory.

...

"Ayyymonnnn." Kuruk moaned, his head following that broad, ursine snout as it searched the air for a scent that seemed to change on the wind.

"No, not Damon." Naenia rubbed her palm over the stubble growing on her scalp, wondering if all her... all of Kamakshi's daughters were likewise chafing at hair they'd never grown before.

"It's Inkar." The ork chieftain announced herself from a spear-throw further in the trees beyond the far side of the great ditch that Kuruk had carved to make a small pond near the fresh spring that fed South-wold's water supply.

"Aymon..." Kuruk grumbled, scooping more soft earth with both hands and throwing it in a scattering arc into the brush. "Mph."

"Yes, she and her sisters." Naenia responded to the curious inflection -- Kuruk had sniffed at her many times and mumbled his master's name in confusion, which she took to mean he could smell Damon's power (or growing seed) within her.

"Gud." Kuruk grunted, scooping more dirt.

"Should have killed the troll." Inkar snorted, marveling at the work Naenia had set the beast on. "Why are you making a water hole?"

"For him." Naenia pointed at Kuruk with her chin. "He cannot live in the stream. This will be good."

"Are they not still downstream?" Inkar crossed her arms over her breasts and studied the surrounds, trying to recall the stream's passage from this distance. "You will drain this back into the stream, yes?"

"Much further down." Naenia nodded, giving a stupid human motion with one hand that didn't really clarify things to Inkar.

"Digging?"

"No -- that way." Naenia thrust with her jaw, realizing she had adopted the ridiculous human gesture because Kuruk had learned it from Damon.

"So far? Other humans will see." Inkar rubbed her scalp before idly scratching at the itchy stubble above her naked groin. "Unless they are helping you from that side."

"It helps them." Naenia nodded. "Kuruk watches them -- like a bull mammoth, or the wolf her cubs."

"I need human medicine." Inkar put a fist on her hip. "Swamp fever has made one of mine sick, and I mean for him to die in battle -- not from thirst."

"Do his wounds stink?" Naenia met the fierce gaze of the Sidero chief, wondering if either of them could remember a time before Kamakshi had become the Betrayer.

"Some... not as much after we washed him." Inkar's foot tapped impatiently, one of the few gestures orks and humans seemed to share. "But he is swollen, hot and dry."

"I will bring a healer, if your sick kin will survive many days." Naenia figured that Nurcan might have some luck in treating this sickness (or at least learn something in her failure).

"We need faster medicine." Inkar tilted her head and shrugged one shoulder. "Bring the healer, but give me medicine now."

"What does Sidero offer South-wold?" Naenia turned herself away from Inkar, breaking their tense staring match, to give Kuruk a few more instructions. "More, here, more. Dig. Good, Kuruk."

"Mph." Kuruk changed the angle and direction of his attentions, giving the soil a few casual swipes that revealed thick clay and larger rocks beneath the stiff clay-sand.

The ditch was quite bowl-shaped, now, and Kuruk could easily lay down in it without reaching any edge. It was no deeper than Naenia's knees at the deepest point, but the troll had made quick work of it. Tomorrow, a few of the younger adults would bring rakes and shovels to scatter the soil more evenly through the brush. Once they flooded the pond, but before connecting it back to the stream, Naenia meant to have Kuruk leap bodily into the pond... causing a surge to push loose debris outward from the pond and scatter the loose soil further before correcting the water flow.

That idea had been Akuji's, which she hated to admit, and the placement had been his idea as well. He knew the Willow Wood better than she did, having lived here far longer. Naenia... before she'd become Naenia... had been born in the North, beneath the shadows of a place called the High Ice where Jotun, humans, dwarves, and orks warred for resources of timber, meat, and steel through the sunless winter. Humans and dwarves doubled their woes by adding coal and oil to the list of things they always needed in the North -- ever fearful their bodies would succumb to the cold. At least they had the sense to wear furs and skins, and the dwarves built great stone furnaces to heat their homes.

This far south, when the wind did not bite and blind year-round, needs changed.

"Hmph." Inkar grunted, not wanting to admit she hadn't given it much thought, and instead wanting to seem as though it was Naenia asking her for aid. "Does the might of the Sidero not protect you enough? Does the human's magic not make you protect sick and weak things?"

"Tell me of the Orenda." Naenia patted Kuruk's massive shoulder and put her gaze back on the ork chief.

"Hmph. My scouts should not speak of tribe matters where you can hear."

"Tell me." Naenia crossed her arms over her breasts.

"Young tribe... they do not know Sidero's name -- not like the Swamp Lizards know it -- and the Orenda are all runts and mules." Inkar spat, then narrowed her eyes at Naenia. "The medicine."

"They are many." Naenia pouted thoughtfully, adjusting the rough-spun tunic on her body and checking the placement of the small sliver of a knife tucked in her belt. "And Sidero loses an ork more quickly than it gains an ork."

"Winter will see many whelps." Inkar frowned at Naenia. "Too many, even for South-wold."

"So, you see what Damon left behind?"

"I hate it."

"You should hate it. You should enjoy it." Naenia grunted and spat, then turned her attention back to the digging troll. "Oi, Kuruk. Stop. We go. Follow."

"Mollow..." Kuruk slurred, showing a growing command of speech.

"We will see if Nurcan has medicine." Naenia walked toward the village, hopping up out of the pond and onto the game trail that would lead, roundly, back to South-wold.

...

"Sidero, again, Orenda-Chief." The mangy scout, his mottled gray-green and black blotches making him look sickly in the bright light of midday, stood with face lowered and claws limp at his sides as was custom. "The Swamp Lizards whisper the name, and now the northern camps are grumbling."

"How many are they, now?" Orenda stretched, his neck popping loudly as the thick cables of muscle -- much like a troll's neck -- strained in his frustration.

"Fewer than six tens, Orenda-Chief. Their numbers thin."

The chief, porcine nose mashed flat from being broken many times, stood to his full height. This was no towering feat, for Orenda-Chief was a stooped creature with deeply curved back and trunk-like limbs. Hideous and squat as he was, he was near strong as a stripling troll and could easily throw a grown man a dozen paces -- or crush their skull in one furious paw.

"When they are six tens screaming and bleeding on the killing stakes, then their numbers will thin." Orenda-Chief scowled at his scout, only just shorter with a much straighter spine. "When they are six tens culled and burned and eaten, their numbers will thin."

He shoved the ork scout violently, tumbling his subordinate away from him in a tangled dusty heap.

"When I eat the heart of their chieftain before their warriors, and cut their young from their females... when I have torn the stems from them..." Orenda-Chief's voice was a thunderous shout, foaming spittle between his jagged, blackened tusks. "...when they are mules, and meat, and dust and bones - then their numbers will thin!"

The world filled with a red fog for Orenda-Chief, as he howled and raved with hatred of the new name "Sidero". Nigh on two moons, his scouts began to return from the northern camps with stories of slaughtered raiding parties, giant orks that fought without steel or club, and of the silver-hair chieftain with yellow eyes... some said the chieftain of Sidero was a fiend from Beyond... some said she was a smooth-skin giant wearing the skin of an ork. His shaman warned him that Sidero was a poisoner of ork minds, a trickster-shaman who traded in smoke and mischief rather than blood and steel as was proper.

He hated the name Sidero, and their chieftain. He hated her so much that he tore the eyes from a surviving raider sent to him from the northern camp, for he hated the way that ork had stared through him as he tried to describe the Sidero chieftain. The scout had been stinking of lust and without fear -- no proper way for a scout to stink -- and the smell of it had made Orenda-Chief angry such that he ripped the scout's eyes from his head and tore the throat from him. Orenda-Chief had visions, then... every night for three nights... of the giant silvery female that howled and called wolves to her. Rutting had not satisfied him. Beating and torturing slaves had not satisfied him. Now, confronted with more reports of the Sidero butchering his raiders... taking few survivors in place of their own losses as though they were beyond counting... and demanded his tribute to them! He was wroth such as he had not been since he slew his own litter-mates for the title of chieftain more than twelve and two-score moons past.

In only two moons' time, the Sidero had cut-down more than eight score scouts and marauders... and taken but five slaves. Five. Only so many as they lost, it was said. The number of claws on one paw. Orenda-Chief looked down at his claws, and the hazy cloud of blood in his eyes became thicker.

He screamed in outrage, fists clenched and thumping his chest like a drum.

Nearby, huddling by his bubbling cauldron and dreading his chieftain's next words, was Orenda's shaman -- a twisted lump of ork flesh in spotted black and red the hue of sandstone -- soundlessly muttering incantations and casting the seer's bones in the dirt between his feet. Orenda would come, demanding another vision and then he would sound the horns of the war party... for nothing.

The war party would be too great, and Orenda would not send the sneaking, slinking murderers that the shaman employed to keep his position safe. Orenda despised such methods, though Crack-tooth had offered many times to send daggers in the night to slit Sidero's neck and bring the young chieftain's head back to Orenda. The auguries had seen it through -- it would work, if only Orenda would allow. To act against Orenda would be to invite a death more gruesome than torture or brutal savagery... no, to kill the young Sidero in the night with blades covered in poison would bring only slow smoldering over weak fires as Orenda picked Crack-tooth apart bit by bit... and the vicious old rutter would call another shaman to keep Crack-tooth alive long enough that none would disobey Orenda again for many moons. Alive long enough to feel the red-hot iron killing stake pierce his arse and up through his guts and out his mouth.

Crack-tooth knew, for Orenda favored this method for slaking his rage the most and Crack-tooth had made such things happen for his chieftain's amusement. He knew how long a shaman could keep such a tortured body alive, wailing in agony and begging for death. It was that fear that staid his claws from sending his poisoned daggers north against his chieftain's wishes. Knowing that he could depend on them to keep the chieftain's command absolute across the whole of the scattered Orenda camps, the three-score score -- more than a thousand by smooth-skin reckoning -- but that their loyalty to Crack-tooth stopped when Orenda howled for blood.

Now was such a time, and Crack-tooth had only a half-shaped idea prepared when Orenda-Chief bowled him over beside his cauldron, seething and foaming more than the soupy concoction Crack-tooth had prepared for his next vision.

"Tell me, Crack-tooth. Tell me when my horde marches over them and takes all six tens of them as slaves to butcher as I please." Orenda-Chief punctuated this by jabbing one of his claws into Crack-tooth's shoulder, piercing the flesh and drawing blood without so much as a whimper from the shaman.

"They will be as smoke, if you lead your horde against them." Crack-tooth sucked his lips against his broken tusks and saw-like teeth. "They will bite and scurry and vanish. I have seen this."

"Bah!" Orenda-Chief clubbed the shaman's cauldron with the back of his hand, ignoring the sizzling heat as scalding liquid bloomed up and out and the blistering pot itself sailed two-dozen paces away to smash against the hapless flesh of a naked goblin slave. The wretched creature collapsed beneath the iron pot and shrieked from the burns, skin swelling in great blisters on its back.

Orenda-Chief was momentarily distracted by the sickening display, for it pleased him more than being told he could not sink his teeth into his quarry. It was enough that some glimmer of sense entered his mind.

"How many?" Orenda growled, his great, trunk-thick arms drooping as he pawed at the dirt and his eyes found Crack-tooth again. "How many do I take to cut them to ribbons... do we sneak forward..."

Crack-tooth sat up, at last hoping his chieftain was seeing the sense in poison.

"...and attack in waves? How do we hide the horde so they do not see us?" Orenda's eyes gleamed with dull cunning. "Brush fire? Smoke? Fog? You can call fog down to hide the horde and we will be on them in the night."

Crack-tooth licked his lips and sat up, ignoring the bleeding wound on his shoulder where the chieftain's claw had poked a hole in his flesh. His shaggy hide was riddled with such pock-marks, what matters one more? The shaman grumbled and scooped the bones to his relatively thin, bony hands, and made to cast them.

He gurgled his spell, arms swaying this way and that as the bones rattled between his cupped palms. The energy gathered, focusing within his mind to give him a sense of things to come.

He threw the bones between his feet, stepping back to study them as Orenda-Chief loomed above him. Crack-tooth stooped low, so the breath from his nostrils stirred the dust around the bones and spat grit back into his eyes -- perhaps more to keep the chieftain from seeing the fear in his eyes. The bones were blank. The questions meaningless. Either Sidero were fouling his magic, or Orenda-Chief's questions gave no clear path forward. Crack-tooth muttered several breaths, waiting for Orenda's impatience to drag him away so he could claim the chieftain spoiled his scrutiny of the bones. He did not wait long.

...

"Speak!" The mighty chieftain's pitiably short patience had ended, and he clouted Crack-tooth aside and over the coals of the shaman's own fire.

He knew the sick-looking, blade-toothed shaman would claim to have been just about to discover the answer... he didn't care. He was too furious. Watching his shaman fumble and roll about to smother flames and scatter burning hides as Crack-tooth hissed and cursed was the peak of Orenda-Chief's day. Now, he needed to rut. That would give the shaman time to cast the bones again, and it would give Orenda some distraction.

"Great Chief, I only saw the beginnings..." Crack-tooth's predictable lie stank near as much as the burnt hair and hides upon him. "I will gather more power for another casting."

"I'm going to rut." Orenda-Chief snorted dismissively, turning his shoulder to the shaman and lumbering with his stooping shuffle toward his war lodge.

...

Crack-tooth was gathering his burnt and smoking hides when one of the northern scouts approached. The shaman glanced up, snarling to set the scout on his heels as Crack-tooth finished gathering his spilled possessions to return to his own tent and consider the best way to approach this problem and satisfy Orenda's bloodlust with a single vision. Such things took time and contemplation, which meant few distractions that Crack-tooth had already suffered in abundance. The scout's eyes were intent, mouth working silently as he cast about the camp. Something to say, for the shaman's ears alone, maybe.