Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 14

This distraction could prove a clue, a key, a knife between Sidero's ribs without risking the violent reprisal of Orenda-Chief.

"Follow." He groused, harrumphing as he stood and shuffled toward his tent.

...

So simple. Small-hands, they would call him. Small-hands. Now, he would be Small-hands, rather than Ten'Small-hands. He was Sidero. Nights, sleepless and toiling. Days being beaten into the shape of Sidero, though his flesh did not match and his bones would not stretch. Each day, given the same task again and again.

"Come for my blood, Ten'Small-hands." One would say -- one of Inkar-Chief's sisters, or great Inkar-Chief herself -- and they would warn him. "But if I see your intent, you will know. Come, messenger."

Here he sat, in Crack-tooth's tent, panting softly as blood ran over his claws from Crack-tooth's neck. So simple, so quiet.

"I have a message." And he had believed his own lie, from the moment he left the Sidero -- now eight nights passed.

"What is it? I'm busy." Crack-tooth had turned away, ducking through the flap in his tent as Ten'Small-hands followed dutifully.

The shaman had turned his back, seeing only the lie and not the poisonous truth beneath it. The serpent's kiss, a knife in the throat so swift as the Sidero had taught Ten'Small-hands' green-black hands to be swift...

...

He shrugged out of his disguise, stolen garb from another of Orenda's captured scouts, and sifted through Crack-tooth's tent for some other disguise. Waiting for night would not serve -- Orenda would grow impatient. Anyway, the smell of blood would be on him and follow him out of the tent. He needed to escape through something else, before running.

How would Sidero cast dirt in their eyes? How would Inkar-Chief cloud their minds with her power and strangle their thoughts with her cunning?

Wearing Crack-tooth's skin would take too long, and would not pass even a single sentry. His cloaks, rags, and hides would serve only little better by a single breath. He needed smoke. His eyes found tarry pitch, rancid fats and something stinking like strong spirits. Would it be enough? Crack-tooth had been near some of the storage tents, and some of those had crates of stolen glass bottles, clay demijohns, and small belly-sized barrels of different spirits. Oil was kept well away from these, in small tin flasks only just enough for use in treating hides for canopies... Orenda's canopies. Small-hands thought he remembered seeing the tent where such treatments began.

The real challenge was, once the screams and horns began, he would have no clear path to run -- fangs, claws, and death in every direction. Did Small-hands have the feet for such running? Would his chest hold? How precious could he make his death? Should he cut straight for Orenda's neck?

No. Orenda-Chief would bash him to pulp with one fist. If he was lucky, his death would be swift. No, he could not go that way.

"Crack-tooth?" a whisper at the tent flap made Small-hands' thoughts freeze.

Before he could answer, his feet had turned and his mind went blank -- he must deliver his message.

The Orenda ork ducked in, hand on hatchet, nose flared to draw in the rich scent of blood too strong for a simple shamanic ritual. Too much. Entering like a pouring shadow, the shaman's poisoned blade was struck with the sight of a naked ork, arms soaked in blood, and chest carved with runes unknown among the Orenda. Crack-tooth was sprawled on his sleeping pallet, the front of him covered in deep crimson and his neck bore a gaping black hollow through which no breath would pass ever again.

As though punched, the shaman's agent gasped outward, then sucked in a breath to scream alarm -- to slash at the vacant eyes of this betrayer with the blank face. But he moved, when the Orenda ork's breath escaped; the traitor moved with a serpent's swiftness.

...

A horn sounded. A welcome sound: the signal of something being captured. Shouting. Commotion. Dozens of orks rushing this way and that to break-down oiled tents or smother things half-burnt. Orenda-Chief ignored these and followed the signal horn, already hatefully scheming how to torture and mutilate this new prisoner -- Sidero most like -- and show his tribe how fragile these northern orks really were.

To his amazement, he saw no great northern giant or silvery-haired ork of smooth-skinned beauty. This was one of his own... beaten and bloody with one side of his face swollen and many wounds upon him, mumbling incoherently between the two warriors dragging the prisoner toward their chieftain.

"Orenda-Chief!" They shouted, then stammered, not wanting to be the first to make a mistake and enrage their already fuming chieftain.

"What is this?" Orenda seethed, gripping the captive ork's jaw in one paw and leaning close.

The prisoner went limp, swooning like a smooth-skin human. Orenda leaned closer and sneered. A flash of yellow fangs, the whip-snap of sinew, and the warriors clapped together against Orenda's shoulders. The chieftain swatted blindly, his face and eyes coursing with blood from the sudden bite. Never again would Orenda trust a captive ork, awake or no.

Orenda lashed out, smashing and rending, tearing apart the prisoner and both orks holding it. When the scattering of flesh and blood at last stopped, Orenda listened to the booming roar still sounding in his throat. Mopping one hand over his face, he found much of the left side was tattered scraps, and the eye was dangling from the socket.

He howled his rage, ripping into the already limp, formless remains of Small-hands of Sidero.

...

Great goblin chieftain Wakhashem had scavenged and scrounged from his tribe -- all scattered or killed in the rabid, furious passage of it. A full day of picking through the ruined scraps of tents and moldy hides. Much of it had been crushed, buried, ruined by scree and dust or boulders whose paths destroyed and carved crooked slaloms to wherever their cascade came to rest. He'd had to dig his way free of his burrow -- but only through a few handspans of gravel and settled dust -- which had taken him well past nightfall as he waited for any of his craven tribe to come looking for him. It never occurred to Wakhashem that his own cowardice was as much to blame for his predicament as it was for the absence of any followers once he emerged, bruised and choking on dust.

Outfitted with the stabbing-end of a broken spear, two skinning ulu, and a leather sling for which Wakhashem possessed no great skill, the still-proud, still-skittish goblin chieftain picked his way through the deep shadows of the forested box canyon. If it returned, he did not want to be captured in its path. He would leave the wreckage behind and cut south across the plains toward a place his forebears called the Great Water. A place of serpents, fish, salt, and plenty of places to hide.

All the better if any of his tribe remained somewhere nearby in the tall grasses -- hiding and waiting for his glorious return.

By dawn, he woke to the chill damp of morning in the mountain shadows of the foothills, tucked beneath a dense scrub oak -- perhaps the last of its kind this far out of the valley -- and hunger twisted his guts angrily. All the foodstuffs had been ruined. Wakhashem broke his fast with sucking dew from waxy leaves, chewing on the fibrous shoots of greener stalks of grass, and cursing hoarsely of his foul luck and rotten tribe.

The morning's swift breath chased up his nose, filling his head with the familiar stink of his tribe. It seemed some of them at least had gone south -- so he might yet overtake them if he hurried. Digging one finger into his ear, he scrubbed out more fine dirt and sand. The chill of dawn stung his fingers, and he couldn't properly spit his curses with such a dry mouth. Rasping and grumbling, he shuffled south into the tall grass.

All that day and the next, Wakhashem fumbled and fought his way south through trackless grasslands and low hills. Around midday of the first since leaving his destroyed home, Wakhashem found the remains of a camp -- meager with only a shallow, hasty fire pit whose coals had been soaked with goblin piss and dung before being abandoned. Matted patches in the grass told him that no fewer than ten of his tribe had rested there, but their departure was a broad, trampled line bearing the unmistakable stench of the southern plains orks that called themselves Orenda.

His own cruel, cowardly cunning prodded him forward -- if for no other reason than to find some way to slit a few throats and take back what was "rightfully" his. Wakhashem hid well, and it was that craven wit that led him within earshot of the sound of tortured, squealing goblins. A sound Wakhashem knew well from his own debauched abuse of his tribe during his brief reign. It still excited him, though he knew it was the Orenda dealing-out pain for their own vicious delights. Whichever goblin was being despoiled would likely not live the night -- if not devoured alive, its injuries would be too severe to hold to life. Not that it would be a life worth living, once the Orenda had their way with the runty goblins.

The goblin chieftain fondled his crotch absently as the squealing reached a shrill keening cry... then stuttered into silence. Dead, then -- or so near it made no difference now. The other goblins would be glad for the relative quiet, though it could just as easily mean one of their number would be next spitted on an Orenda's rut-stick until their guts burst. Wakhashem gave a moment's thought to how many necks he could open in utter silence before the Orenda knew he was there... maybe three. If there were more than three Orenda, his tribe was lost to him and he would be alone.

A lone chieftain without a tribe was no chieftain. He would have to kidnap at least one of his clan to serve him as they fled. Maybe he could kill two Orenda and escape with one goblin. The Orenda had the advantage of strength -- but even orks slept after days on the march... especially after rutting a handful of goblins to death for sport.

He lurked in the deep grass, picking his way closer from downwind as the sun sank onto the shoulders of the distant peaks to the west. From beneath the shelter of a fruitless thornbush, Wakhashem's beady black eyes, swollen and dry, espied the orks of Orenda where they had trampled another crude camp to enjoy the spoils of their most recent conquest.

Five, in all, and only twice that in goblins of Wakhashem's kind. Flesh tore, bones snapped. Two fewer goblins than before the screaming began. But it looked as though the Orenda had been playing their violent games of torture much of the day, and they seemed to like not at all to return to their chief with empty bellies and tired heads. Good. Sleeping orks might have one eye open, but a cut neck filled with blood and raised no alarm. Wakhashem could use this.

A rustling of the brush warned him, but too fast, and the vise of a gray hand with pink-white mottle snatched his ankle -- dragging him from his shelter into bright light before a heavy gray fist sent Wakhashem into a cold black oblivion.

...

"Good hunt, eh Nafanua?" Ube sucked at the remains of the marrow in the thin bones that were once a goblin's ribs. "Maybe this one is worth keeping."

Ube's broad gray hand smacked the side of the comatose goblin he'd rustled from beneath the thornbush.

"Sneaky is useful." Nafanua nodded, eyes narrowed as she stitched gut-thread through the wound on her arm even as blood poured from it. "Hold this, Ube."

With a grunt, Ube leaned toward her and gripped her injured arm in both hands -- pressing the flesh together to slow the bleeding so the she-ork could finish sewing the wound closed. His own injuries had been minor, as he had been tasked with killing the sleeping orks while Nafanua confronted the sentries. It had been swift, bloody, and thrilling to face these Orenda so far from their own camp. Any moment, more Orenda might happen upon them, and it filled Nafanua and Ube with excited bloodlust.

Even before the Orenda bodies had cooled, Ube had mounted Nafanua from behind as he liked, and rutted her as they had rutted before the sorcerer's magic... in those few moments when the Betrayer's commands, magical or not, were quiet -- if not absent. Nafanua expressed her enjoyment, howling and bucking against him; ignoring their injuries until he spent himself in her and she was dizzy from lust and bleeding.

Now, with several trussed goblins and one trussed Orenda ork, Nafanua had seen fit to tend her injuries as Ube filled his belly on the meat ready to hand.

"Do these southern beasts taste of piss?" Ube asked, sniffing with disgust, though it didn't stop him eating.

"Everything this far south stinks." Nafanua snarled, tied the last knot in the stitching and giving Ube a meaningful glance. "Your knife?"

"Mph." Ube discarded the marrow-sucked bone and plucked his knife from the small fire, stirred it through the little clay pot of sap, and clipped the trailing end of thread before leaving a light smear of kusuri sap over the jagged line in Nafanua's forearm. Sizzling, the hiss of Nafanua's breath as the heat angered her flesh. The sap cooled, stiffened over the wound and became firm to the touch.

"It will hold." Ube nodded with approval. "Good stitching."

"Good learning." Nafanua thrust her jaw at him, their mouths touching briefly and tusks clacking together.

"Inkar-Chief will be pleased." Ube looked around at the disheveled camp and the spoils they'd gathered. "We will have full hands and bellies."

"Some bellies more full than others." Nafanua chuckled. "Is your rut-stick ready again?"

"Yes." Ube glanced down at his hardening member. "Do you think any of these are female?"

"Why rut goblin?" Nafanua scoffed, turned over to her hands and knees. "When you can rut Sidero? You are no mule, Ube. Do not rut as one."

"Mph." Ube acknowledged with a scowling grunt. "You know what I mean."

His claws gripped Nafanua's bare hips deliberately, squeezing and drawing a growl of approval from his companion as he thrust his rut-stick into her from behind -- her dripping cunt wet from her waning bloodlust and smoldering desire for Ube's seed-milk. Sidero's females, from the chieftain to the weakest of their tribe, had all been sown during those first nights after the shaman's magic had remade them. Nafanua knew Ube's seed would root in her, for she took no other male for breeding. Ube's rut-stick was special to her, if for no other reason than it had been the first she had chosen for herself, back when so many of them were still mules or nearly mules. Whether Ube felt so driven wasn't something they had discussed, but he always seemed ready for her when she turned her haunches at him.

As Ube's fierce, rhythmic slapping of hips to hips plunged his blazing rod into the drenched channel of Nafanua's sex, one of the goblins began to stir awake in its bindings. When Wakhashem's beady little eyes could focus, and his ears could hear and his foggy brains could understand what had happened, the goblin chief swore poisonously in his squeaky tribal tongue.

"Goblin bravery." Nafanua scoffed, grunting in time with Ube as her mate picked-up speed and howled his release. Having spent himself in her earlier, his sack offered her much less milk much less quickly... but the she-ork purred and ground her hips against Ube as he panted, slumping backward while Nafanua pushed onto him and kept his meat inside her until it softened.

"Was he a chief?" Ube sneered at the pouting, hateful little creature as it glared back at him. "Maybe I should pluck his eyes..."

Wakhashem understood their speech enough to think better of staring his anger at them. He would be patient. Until he could squirm loose of the ropes and run, or ingratiate himself to one of these things enough that it let him free... something... anything to escape with his miserable life.

"Inkar-Chief will see him and find his use." Nafanua lay on her back, legs splayed as she beckoned Ube with a clawed hand. "Rut me with your mouth, now, Ube. I am not done."

The male's eyes were drawn away from their captives and back to the abused, glistening sex of the she-ork who stank of his rut-stick. Ube grinned hungrily and crawled toward her.

Wakhashem grimaced and looked away, fidgeting against the coarse hemp bindings and trying to ignore the growing odor of ork-rutting that was making his own goblin loins flush with petulant arousal. He cursed at the other goblin captives, each whimpering beneath his baleful glare while simultaneously trying to ignore their own pitiful state. The Orenda ork had not yet regained his senses, but his nostrils flared and his rut-stick hardened anyway.

...

"The bones speak... ill comes of this." The shaman's saurian snout opened and closed thinly, black forked tongue working over thin lips as she hissed to herself. "Sidero is returned."

"War?" one of the remaining tribal leaders who might now vie for chieftain rasped, one clawed hand worrying the haft of his spear. "War, Speaker?"

"Smoke, blood, and death." The shaman nodded gravely, green-yellow orbs staring intently down at the casting bones for her augury. "What else than war? Are we the willow, or the muck-root? Agkistros or foundering warm-blood?"

"The Sidero..."

"Do not come for us." The shaman looked up, eyes blinking with their clear covering as she narrowed her gaze. "They come -- and war blossoms on them like frog-flower and glowing stipticus. The bones do not see the strength of their venom. I do not ask what the chieftain does not think to ask."

"Our chief is dead." One of the younger warriors, a member of the Speaker's retinue, spoke out before any elders could offer reproach. "A chief must rise!"

"A chief must rise!" the call was taken up by a dozen of the People and the Speaker nodded in silence as she looked about.

"Who will taste the blood of Gharial and rise?" the Speaker narrowed her eyes to slivers, taking the measure of each, younger and older.

Days without a chieftain had dragged their spirits low, the first such time in the memory of any among the People yet living. Perhaps the old chieftain knew such a time, before -- but his scales were drying and would make the mantle of the new chieftain; one kobold bold enough to confront their guardian and return victorious. Prowess, cunning, speed, and a considerable amount of luck were needed to confront the immense water dragon that dwelled near the swamp's heart. The tribe's dark god Gharial, in the flesh.

Before her augury -- even before the Speaker arrived at the site of the old chieftain's death -- six warriors had ventured out to confront Gharial's avatar. Whatever hope of glory or mercy they sought was met only with their absence and the Speaker's cursing their foolishness and haste. Gharial ate forever, and would consume the world, once the beast's hunger was too great for the swamplands to satisfy. It was said in the hearth-stories that Gharial was called into being by the shaman-god Sidero in the time before the tribe began. Sidero departed, and Gharial grew ravenous and withdrew into the wetlands where many fish and birds gathered. When the People took residence in Gharial's shadow, it was an uneasy truce that became a furtive dance of kobold placation and worship to the water dragon's indifference or ruinous hunger.

"I will face the beast." First one, then another... until five warriors stood forward, shaking with dread and knowing doom waited for them.

"A chief must rise." The Speaker bowed low among them, a chanting hiss rising from the remaining People.

...

"Will he live?" Naenia translated to Nurcan, the graying-haired human woman giving only cursory acknowledgement.

"The wounds are cleaned, now." Nurcan grunted, scrubbing blood from her hands in the basin beside her. "His insides are no different than a man, boar, or bull."