Storms & Sacrifice Ch. 01

"Deputy Captain Keenguard." Khazak returns the salute. This is his second deputy, the one that works out of the other ranger station. "Here to relieve you. Anything interesting?"

"Just another quiet week in the forest, sir." She doesn't sound too upset by that. "Afraid you had all the fun out here three weeks ago." Her eyes fall on me. "This must be David."

"I do not believe you have had the pleasure of meeting him yet." Khazak half-turns to me. "David, this is Deputy Captain Morgal Keenguard."

Morgal holds out her hand to me and I reach for it, only remembering a split second after she grabs my wrist that they do handshakes differently around here too, and I'm pulled in for a quick hug. Oof.

"Nice to meet you, David. Sir." With another salute, she hoists a large bag over her shoulders and makes her way out of the camp. I see the air around the camp's border shimmer as she passes through, the image snapping back into place once she's on the other side.

"Let me show you where our tent is," Khazak calls my attention back to him, walking us around the campfire to one of the smaller tents--though it still looks slightly bigger than the others.

"Is this tent bigger?" I ask as Khazak undoes the ties holding the opening flap down.

"Yes, by ten whole square meters!" He says it like I've won a prize.

"What did I do to earn such lavish accommodations?" I deadpan.

"Sleeping with the captain comes with perks," he jokes, stepping inside and dropping his bag to the tent floor before stepping back out. "I am going to go speak with the rest of this week's patrol unit. Please put our things away and then come find me there, pup."

"Yes, Sir." I can do that. The fact that it wasn't a request isn't lost on me. He's gotten more confident with his orders in the last couple of weeks and I don't mind it.

I put our weapons to one side and drop my bag in one corner. The tent isn't very big, maybe ten-by-eight feet. The walls and floor are made of a thick leather attached to a sturdy wooden frame, the corners of which are buried to firmly anchor it to the ground. The poles go straight up for about five feet before bending at a point to meet in the middle. I can stand up alright but the orcs probably need to crouch some.

First thing to take care of is the bedroll. I pick what I decide feels like the softest patch of earth under the tent floor and unfurl it, smoothing out the corners with my hands. I find a small pillow in the center, realizing now that we forgot to pack a second one. Dammit. I grab some of our clothes out of the smaller bag, making sure to keep them all neatly folded and stacked. I don't think we need anything else, so I straighten up the bags and weapons, nodding to myself when I'm finished before stepping back outside.

I make my way over to the open tent, where Khazak and Arik are standing with the other orcs. I don't recognize two of them, but the third I've gotten to know pretty well--Glasha Silentfang. She smiles when she sees me, her short brown hair falling over the right side of her face. The left side of her hair is shaved, exposing the silver rings pierced into her right ear. Most orcs around here seem to have brown eyes, but she's one of the few I've seen with green. I first met her when she helped me kick Khazak's ass in a rug'bal game (it's basically football) during my first week here. Since then, I've seen her at the station, where we've had lunch together, worked out together, even sparred a little. I like her a lot.

Khazak notices my approach and smiles, pulling me over to him. "For those of you who have not yet my avakesh, this is David." Khazak uses the title for me in his language that means something between slave, servant, and pet. You get used to it. "David, these are Officers Stonearm and Proudblade."

"Hi." I say much more meekly than I intend. "Nice to meet you."

"Hello." "Hi." Men of few words. Works for me.

"Over the next week, Rangers Silentfang, Deepfist and I will periodically walk a patrol route through this section of the forest, while the officers remain here and keep guard at the campsite." Khazak instructs. Mostly me. Okay exclusively me, since everyone else obviously knows what they're doing. "We will walk one more patrol today before it gets dark and we have dinner. Then we each take a two-hour shift keeping watch overnight until morning."

"Well, we do all that alone, while you get a nice warm body to keep you company." Deepfist half-jokes, half-gripes to my right.

"If you are so jealous, get one of your own, Arik." Glasha rolls her eyes.

Noises behind me have me turning around, facing the other large tent across the campfire. When it opens, a small amount of smoke billows out as a sixth orc steps out to join our band. He looks different from the rest, with no uniform to speak of, instead wearing brown robes that reach the forest floor. His long grey hair is matted, the individual locks adorned with jewelry that look like to be made of bone and metal. His equally-grey beard reaches his chest and when he gets close, I can smell him. He doesn't smell bad exactly, but well... Dude's been out here a while. He speaks to the group, and not in Common, so I just nod politely.

"David, this is Wu'dag Bonespirit, the camp's resident shaman." That's what that smell is. "He is responsible for creating and maintaining the wards and illusions in this part of the forest."

A shaman is a natural spellcaster, like a druid or a witch. They get their spellcasting powers from a connection to the world around them--the whole 'magic is everywhere' deal. All natural casters can see and communicate with nature spirits, but a shaman's abilities allow them to connect to them directly, able to channel and amplify the spirits' powers with their own. I know all this because Mike used to go on and on about random magical info.

"So this is one of the little shits I felt a few weeks back." Wu'dag gives me a once over. "Scrawnier than I expected."

"I'm working on it." I'll show him a little shit...wait.

"Huh." The older orc steps closer, squinting his eyes as he peers at me. "Anyone ever tell you that you have a weird aura, kid?"

"...Not exactly." They didn't use the word weird. "My twin is a wizard. I've got um..." Shit, what did that woman from the institute call it? "Latent magical potential. All my siblings do, but me a little more. It rubbed off on me or we share enough of the same genes or something?"

I'm not doing a very good job of explaining it, but it basically means that while I can't use magic to cast spells, I still have some spark of it inside me. It's like having the flint but no fuel for a fire. There's no way to 'turn on' the magic, because there's nothing to turn on, it just is what it is. Nowadays it doesn't mean much since most magical items are configured to work for anyone, but it used to be that they'd have to be powered, or at least activated, by the magic of the person wielding them. The spark to light the flame.

"Huh." He squints again. "Yeah, I guess that could do it. Looks like we need an extra compass stone." He stands up straight and turns to the rest of the group. "Alright, stones out, time to sync 'em up."

All of the orcs around me, including the shaman, reach into their pockets and pull out smooth, red-colored stones, no more than an inch or two wide. They gather in a circle, hands outstretched clutching the stones together. The shaman takes his free hand and holds it aloft over them, slowly chanting a spell. I see Wu'dag's eyes glow first followed by the stone in his hand, then I see the same glow coming from each of the others' enclosed palms.

"This is for him." Wu'dag drops the stone he held in Khazak's open palm. "I will be in my tent if you need me."

"Alright, David and I will take the first patrol, then Glasha, then Arik." Khazak speaks to his troops. "See you back here for dinner."

Everyone salutes and disperse, Khazak turning to me. "We will fill our waterskins and grab our equipment, then head out. We will be walking for at least a couple of hours."

My eyes go wide. Hours? Wow, okay. We go back to the tent and retrieve our weapons and a pair of waterskins from Khazak's supply bag. After filling them at a barrel under the big tent, we start to walk away from camp. I see the illusion warble as we pass through it, and a glance behind us reveals nothing but the forest. We walk for a while, not following any sort of path that I'm able to pick up on. I try to look for landmarks like before but don't see anything. We go straight for a while before turning in another direction. We do this for a while in silence before I finally need to ask.

"Are we following an actual route here?" My voice ringing out in the quiet forest almost sounds wrong.

"Hmmm." Khazak smiles, considering me for a moment. "Yes and no. There is a general path we are following but we have a lot of leeway. We need to cover a certain amount of ground, and sticking too much to the same path might make it easy for someone to slip by."

"Is that something you have to worry about a lot?" It seems like they've been doing this for years.

"Not really, but we do not want to get complacent." He turns to me and smirks. "Cannot have someone raiding our ancient temples."

I roll my eyes at the obvious dig. That was one time! We continue walking in relative silence. It's nice though, after spending these past weeks together the two of us have gotten pretty comfortable around each other. Plus, seeing as this is a patrol, spending the whole time talking would be distracting and kind of defeat the point.

"I was curious..." The sun is starting to set when Khazak breaks the silence between us. "Does it still bother you when people bring up the arena and ritual? Our match?"

"I wouldn't say it bothers me, exactly." I've gotten over that part of it, at least. "It's more that it can just be a little embarrassing when I think I'm meeting someone new and it turns out they were a witness to me very publicly losing my virginity."

"Would you like me to say something?" It's a genuine request. Despite what he says, I know there are some aspects of the way we 'met' that he still feels guilty over.

"No, I know they don't mean anything by it." I can handle the teasing, I know it's not malicious.

"Alright, another question. Was that truly your first time?" It's not an accusation; there's a measure of concern in his voice betraying why he's asking. "Not that I have any reason to doubt you, I just know by the time I was your age I had already experimented quite a bit, with both men and women."

"I mean, you know I had girlfriends. I did a lot of kissing back in the day, and I've touched more than my fair share of tits over dresses. But no," I shake my head, "you've been my first for everything else."

"I see." He's trying not to but I can hear a little disappointment. "I feel I need to apologize, you first time should have been more--"

"Hey, come on, we've been through this already." I turn to face him, walking backwards. "As screwed up as it was, I still liked it, and you can't say it wasn't memorable, right?"

"I suppose you are correct," Khazak huffs, begrudgingly agreeing with me.

"What was your first time like?" I've never actually heard him talk about anyone in his past like that before.

"Awkward and hurried. And a little painful." Khazak shakes his head as he recalls. "I think we were fifteen? Me and another boy from school. We were in my bedroom and somehow the house was empty. We had no idea what we were doing."

"Painful, huh?" I know that feeling.

"Yes, but not for the reason you are thinking," he gripes. "He was very...enthusiastic about oral sex. Too enthusiastic. He sucked me so hard, he gave me... I think you call them 'hickeys,' on the head of my cock."

I can't hold in the guffaw that flies out of my mouth and quickly clamp both my hands over it. "He left hickeys on your dick?!"

"Several," he deadpans. "He took the 'sucking' very literally--" Khazak cuts himself off, eyes going a little wide. "David, do not move."

I freeze in place. What?!

"Everything is okay, just stay still." Khazak's hands are out towards me but he doesn't look panicked. "Look down, just behind you."

I slowly peer downward as requested, and just behind my right foot is a plant, a dark purple flower, maybe a foot high. Actually, there's a whole patch of them.

"What is it?"

"A very poisonous flower, known as 'Ralor's Crown.'" Khazak speaks calmly. "You have not touched it yet, just step over to me, carefully."

I nod slowly moving away from the flower patch. I see now the way each of the petals bloom out then curl back in, each flower resembling a small purple crown.

"What does it do?" I ask when I'm safely away.

"In its current form it would leave you with a very unpleasant rash, before making you feel sluggish and causing your muscles stop responding correctly." He looks down at my legs to make sure there's nothing on them. "The real danger comes when it is processed into a poison. That increases its potency tenfold, enough to kill a person."

"Fuck, and it just grows out here?" Seems like a bad plant to keep around

"It is native to the area but we do not normally allow it to grow so near the city, it is too dangerous." He eyes the patch suspiciously. "This must have cropped up recently."

It is spring, time for plants to start growing. "What do we do about it?"

"You and I will do nothing, but once we get back to camp, we will let Shaman Bonespirit know so that he can take care of it." Makes sense, plants are probably that guy's whole deal.

"Sounds good." We have been walking a while now. "Is it time to head back yet?"

"Yes, actually." Khazak doesn't move though, instead reaching into his pocket. "Here, this is yours."

He hands me one of the red rocks from earlier, the compass stone Wu'dag handed him for me. He then takes a few steps away from me. "Hold it in your fist and stretch your hand towards me."

I do as asked and the stone in my hand begins to pulse in a steady rhythm. I drop my hand and the pulsing stops, only to return when I point my fist at Khazak again.

"The stones are all linked. When one is held and pointed in the direction of another, it pulses." He takes out his own stone to show me "The stronger the pulse, the closer the target stone. Try and see if you can find camp."

"Okay." I turn towards the direction I think camp is, holding the stone out in front of me. I slowly scan it across the horizon until I feel it vibrate in my hand and I freeze. It starts to beat steadily, but much more slowly than it did with Khazak. "I think I found it."

"Glasha and Arik would have left for their own patrols by now, so it could easily be one of them. Keep looking and see if you can tell the difference."

I nod, happy to prove that I know what I'm doing. I keep using the stone to scan the horizon line, finding two more pulsing beat patterns. One feels almost as slow as the first, but the second is a little stronger. It's also in between the other two, so that has to be it.

"Okay, got it this time." I turn to Khazak, confident in my answer.

"Lead the way, pup."

It's nearly dark by the time we get back to the campsite. I see the two officers and Wu'dag seated around the campfire, some meat cooking over the fire. My stomach growls at the smell, hungrier than I realized.

"Welcome back." Wu'dag greets us with the officers as we join them by the campfire. "Anything out of the ordinary?"

"Actually, yes." Khazak frowns. "We found a patch of Ralor's Crown about five kilometers north."

"Huh. I just cleared out a patch of that last week." Wu'dag frowns. "I will take care of it first thing in the morning."

"Thank you, friend." Khazak nods, the two of us joining the group and I groan happily when I take my seat on a log by the fire. I've done more walking today than I have in three weeks.

Glasha returns about half-an hour later, then Arik another half-an hour after that, and the seven of us sit down for dinner. Which ends up being some rabbits the two officers caught while we were patrolling, a signal of what future meals out here may be like. I've had rabbit before, it's not bad. Plus by now I've learned to trust the orcs of Tah'lj and their cooking.

The rest of the night is quiet. After eating, the orcs hang around the fire and swap stories from their weeks. Glasha has her sword out, applying oil to it slowly as she listens to Arik talk about a bar fight he broke up two nights ago. I join the two of them, happy to prove to Khazak I know how to take care of my equipment. I see Khazak disappear with Wu'dag into his tent for a minute at one point, but then he's back out and sitting next to me by the campfire. After a couple of hours of this, everyone heads into the tents to sleep except Khazak and I, ready for the first round of watch.

"It's kinda nice to be able to do this with someone else," I speak low, not wanting to disturb anyone sleeping. The only noises are the crackling of the wood in the campfire and the chirping of the crickets in the forest. We can relax a little more now than when we were on patrol. Me and my friends would do the same thing when on the road, but with five of us we always had to do it alone. We also didn't have any magical illusions to help hide us.

"It is." Khazak smiles as he adds another log to the first to keep it going. "Having you here all week with me will be nice."

"And will make Arik jealous," I joke.

"Can you blame him?" Khazak walks over to where I'm sitting, standing in front of me. He gently takes a hold of my chin, stroking his thumb over my lip. "I certainly do not plan to keep my hands off of you."

My breath hitches a little as the words pass through me, heating something familiar in my stomach. I'm nearly eye level with his crotch, and I can already see a familiar lump starting to form. I look up at his eyes, heavy with lust.

Then a cough rings out from one of the tents and I remember we aren't actually alone. I stumble back from his hold, falling off the back of the log with a thud. When I look up, I see Khazak with one hand over his mouth, struggling to hold in his laughter. He reaches out with the other to help me up, clearing his throat when he's finished and mumbling an apology.

After that a display of nerves, he doesn't try to make another move, and two hours later we wake up Arik for his watch shift. The orc bids us goodnight as we crawl into our own tent, Khazak first. We undress, though not fully nude like we would at home--never know when you might have to get up at a moment's notice--and Khazak slides into the bedroll, holding it open for me to follow. I curl into his side, resting my head on his shoulder. Since we didn't pack a second pillow, he can be my pillow.

"Sleep well, David." Khazak turns his head to kiss the top of mine. "We have a busy day tomorrow."

I nuzzle against him, too tired to reply, the sounds of the crickets in the night air already putting me to sleep.