Author: Tower Curator

 

 

Arkk placed a long list in front of Rekk’ar, then stepped back and waited for the orc to look over the notes.

The first mercenary expedition had been a resounding success. It had been a simple task. A baron of a nearby village had been having trouble with wolves attacking his livestock. The dozen orcs Arkk had taken with him had been more than happy to hunt them down, culling the numbers. They even behaved themselves for the duration of a small feast in the village. The residents had been a bit surprised at Arkk’s choice of company, but no one had been able to argue with the pelts brought back.

It wasn’t enough. Not if Arkk planned to succeed. A few wolves taken care of for a village that few would have heard of out in the greater Duchy wouldn’t be nearly enough.

“No gorgons,” Rekk’ar said, striking the item from the list with an angry swipe of his pen.

“I merely included it for completeness’ sake.”

Rekk’ar just grumbled, striking several other items from the list. With a final glance over the list, he shoved it back over to Arkk.

Arkk immediately adopted a frown. “You crossed off all the large jobs.”

“We’re orcs, not your servant or you,” Rekk’ar said, standing. “I’m aware of our limits and, being responsible for the rest, cannot condone a suicide mission.”

Arkk pointed at one of the crossed-out items. “Surely a single vampire—”

“I don’t know much about vampires, it is true. I know you don’t either, so don’t bother denying it.” Rekk’ar grinned when Arkk couldn’t say anything. “They wouldn’t be offering that much if it was a simple task. Maybe we can do it easily. Maybe not. Do research and get back to me.”

Arkk gave him a look at being commanded around, but Rekk’ar just laughed. “Why did you cross off the viscount’s daughter? I kind of already accepted it…”

Even if he hadn’t accepted it, it was the one job Arkk was most interested in. The one that might put their name out there faster than any other single job. Viscounts, though Arkk wasn’t sure what exactly they did with their time even after meeting one, were important people.

Rekk’ar shrugged. “If nobody else has done it by now, the girl is either dead, doesn’t want to go back, or is being held by something too big for people like us to deal with. No matter what, a bunch of orcs getting involved with a missing human girl is only going to end poorly for us.”

“That…” Arkk sighed. “I can see your reasoning, but I’m overruling it. Getting a viscount vouching for us is the best way to get our name out there.”

“Waste of time,” Rekk’ar said, shaking his head but without fighting it further. “Might I suggest the expedition to a lost pyramid? It would get the boys some fresh air and get them moving. Maybe get us some treasure too.”

Arkk nodded slowly but didn’t think that job would be worth it at all. Not unless that lost pyramid brought with it great fame as well as fortune. With the state of Fortress Al-Mir’s gold mine, he didn’t need any treasure. Not that he said that. To the best of his knowledge, only he and Vezta knew of the wealth sitting around the [HEART]. Technically Zullie had heard as well, but the researcher had thrown herself into trying to uncover the magical mysteries of the fortress. She probably hadn’t even heard Vezta.

“Not worried about gorgons or vampires inhabiting a lost pyramid?”

“Figured they would have made a bit more noise.”

“I don’t know. I found Vezta here. The fortress was completely abandoned at the time and I had lived next door to it my entire life. Never suspected a thing.”

“Then you should be even more interested in it,” Rekk’ar said. “Maybe you’ll find another servant.”

Arkk opened his mouth to discredit that assumption, only to find that he couldn’t. After all, why couldn’t there be another creature like Vezta at some lost pyramid in the middle of nowhere? Looking down at the notes he had taken regarding that particular job, Arkk started nodding to himself.

“The expedition is being led by an elf along with some historian. They want a few guards for the journey. Get me three to five people who won’t have problems taking orders from an elf.”

Rekk’ar nodded, then headed to the door. As he moved, he said, “I’ll have your team by tonight.”

“Good. They can requisition whatever they need from the blacksmith, food supply, and whatever else.”

With a final nod, Rekk’ar stepped outside the meeting room.

Arkk didn’t linger. He teleported away, reappearing inside the fortress library. With the addition of Zullie’s crates of books, it was looking like a library these days. Zullie stood over three open books on the desk. She kept looking back and forth between the two of them while scribbling into the third.

His appearance had gone unnoticed thus far. Even after clearing his throat, she didn’t look up from whatever she was working on.

“Zullie.”

“Busy!”

Sighing, Arkk stepped closer, looking over her shoulder. As far as Arkk could tell in his inexpert observations, she was attempting to dissect the lightning spell. Most of what she was writing made no sense to him. Lots of words, lots of numbers. Since arriving back here, she had given him one of the beginner books she had brought and told him to get through it and then ask questions if he had any. He was only about a third of the way into it. There was just so much going on.

Between running the fortress and mercenary work, there just hadn’t been much time to sit back and read. And he was busy keeping a lookout for any sign that the inquisitors had followed him back to Langleey. Both tunnels were complete now and both had hidden entrances just outside the village and burg. He could teleport in, ask around, and get out in the blink of an eye. The extended tunnels came with the added benefit that they increased the size of his territory, allowing transport from outside the fortress into it from much further out.

“Did Vezta get around to teaching you the spell?”

Zullie didn’t answer right away, finishing her current batch of notes first. Eventually, she turned her head. “Nope!”

“I told her—”

“There wasn’t any need. I cast it myself on my own just using the incantation you gave me.”

“Oh? You figured it out on your own?”

“Not quite,” Zullie said with a frown. “More accurately, there was nothing to figure out. Simply repeating the incantation you gave me allowed me to cast three lightning bolts in a row before I felt like I was about to pass out. Through a few repeated tests, I believe I have discovered a few things. First of all, only I can cast that spell.”

“I’ve been fairly successful at it as well.”

Zullie held up a finger. “Sorry. I meant outside this place, I sincerely doubt anyone would be capable of casting that spell. When you performed whatever ritual magic made me an ‘employee’ and let you move me around, it created a connection between us. I’m having a very difficult time analyzing that connection, but it is that connection that allows me to cast the spell. It simply requires far too much magic to cast for any individual spellcaster. A team might be able to pool their magic together, but not any individual without your connection.”

“So you’re leeching magic from me?”

“Not you, there is something else here,” she said, looking around with narrowed eyes. Her gaze eventually landed back on Arkk. “I suspect you know what it is, however.”

The [HEART]. Arkk didn’t say anything and he tried not to react—the [HEART] was something only known to him, Ilya, and Vezta and he intended to keep it that way.

Still, Zullie nodded as if she expected his reaction or lack thereof.

“Wait,” Arkk said, “if the magic isn’t coming from you, does that mean I would be able to teach the lightning spell to all the orcs? Any employee, for that matter, regardless of whether or not they were capable of magic beforehand?”

“I doubt they will manage well,” Zullie said, scribbling a little note down on the side of her already full page. “Maybe a single weak bolt? I could be considered in the upper echelon of spellcasters in terms of power. If I can barely manage, I doubt a bunch of uneducated orcs will get much of a spark. Still, a fascinating experiment, to be sure.”

Perhaps only as an experiment, however. Half the orcs only agreed to work for him because he could sling magic around. If they could do it too… well, they would still have to break their employee bond and then… then they wouldn’t be able to cast at all. So perhaps it was a good idea all around then? It would make the orcs vastly more effective if they could use magic as well as their already superior martial prowess.

Maybe Rekk’ar would agree to some more prestigious jobs.

“Another thing I discovered was that the lightning spell you use is an entirely separate system of magic from what I—or anyone else—knows. It is the difference between magic and the holy spells wielded by higher-ranking members of the Abbey of the Light. I didn’t realize it right away because two words are hardly enough to linguistically compare to regular spells but by breaking it down analytically, it becomes obvious. I’m not sure what this means, exactly. I need more samples to work with.”

“I only know two other spells. I haven’t even used one and the other… Slave Natum.”

A lesser servant formed between them, slopping to the ground as a gaggle of eyes formed on its pulsating mass. Zullie stumbled back, bumping into a shelf hard enough to knock a few books down around her.

Arkk whisked the creature away, sending it to join the others in digging out a room on a lower level of the fortress. The new treasury.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Zullie said, pressing one hand hard against the base of her throat.

“Should have warned you. Sorry. You get used to them.”

After a few breathing exercises, during which Zullie managed to keep herself from throwing up, she shook her head. “I think I’ll pass on that one. What was that?”

“A servant of the fortress. They dig out new rooms, claim land, reinforce walls, keep things clean, repair damaged areas, and do other general maintenance work.”

“There are more of them?”

“Eight, right now. I try to keep them out of view for obvious reasons. Vezta was going to show me how to make them a little more aesthetically pleasing, but we’ve been busy with other things.”

Zullie shook her head again and, after a few more deep breaths, looked up to Arkk. “The other spell?”

“I don’t think it is one you can use. When I learned it, it was kind of just shoved into my head, but from what I understand, it is something only I can use. It, uh, lets me possess an employee.”

“Possess?”

Arkk shrugged. “I haven’t used it. Don’t know the exact details. Just the general concept.”

“Well? Test it out already.”

“Right now?”

Zullie spread her arms wide as if to say go ahead.

Arkk, however, wasn’t an idiot. An untested spell that could take control of someone else’s body sounded like the perfect way to mess something up. So, he ripped Vezta through space, pulling her from her work in the room with the large crystal archway. He felt a bit bad about dragging her away, especially because he was rather interested in her work with reopening the portal, but she didn’t mind.

As usual, Vezta simply bowed without any apparent discomfort or surprise.

“I’m going to test the possession spell.”

“Excellent,” Vezta said with a smile. “It is a good one to get used to. Keeps you safe while allowing you full use of your abilities. Will you be testing it on myself or your employee?”

Arkk glanced between the two. Vezta was the obvious choice. She had already stated that it was considered an honor to be possessed in this fashion. However, her body was about as far from human as it could possibly get. Arkk had no idea how the spell worked beyond that it took over someone’s bodily autonomy. Would he even be able to function while possessing Vezta?

Zullie, on the other hand, stood with her arms wide, welcoming the opportunity to experience the spell firsthand. He barely knew her and this felt like a fairly personal thing, but she was a human.

If Ilya was around, he might have asked her. Unfortunately, she and Olatt’an were on their way to the Marrowlands Fen in search of her people.

Ultimately, the deciding factor came down to one key thought that ran through Arkk’s mind. If something did happen, Vezta would be able to help him far more than the magical researcher. Trapping her in her body or whatever happened to someone while possessed was less than ideal.

“Ready?” Arkk asked, looking at Zullie.

“I’ve read about possession. Never experienced it, but it is supposedly the domain of ghosts or gods. Neither of which have physical forms, so I’m interested in seeing how this works out. Ghosts typically possess objects rather than people, but the latter has been documented. As for gods…” She shrugged. “They say the Light will possess the Holy Ecclesiarch in times of grave danger, but that hasn’t happened in my lifetime.”

“Alright. But are you ready?”

“I am completely focused on my internal magic in an attempt to uncover what will happen. Proceed at will.”

“Cranium Internum,” Arkk said. Not wanting to explode anyone, he carefully pushed out just a touch of magic toward Zullie, slowly increasing it until it felt like a bit of twine snapped between his fingers.

Arkk shook himself, wobbling slightly. Vezta reached out a hand, steadying him, but even after he regained his balance, he still felt off-kilter. His perspective was shorter than normal and his vision wasn’t as sharp as it usually was. His fingernails were too long, his chest was too heavy, and his back had developed a sudden ache.

Glancing down at himself, he didn’t see himself at all. Rather, he was clad in the black surcoat-like coat that Zullie wore. It left her arms bare—she said she didn’t like sleeves smudging ink—which was more than enough to realize that Arkk wasn’t at all Arkk anymore. His arms were thin and bookish.

Looking up, he saw Vezta smiling at him, but no sign of him.

“This is very strange,” he said, feeling like he needed to clear his throat.

You think this is strange for you? You should see it from my perspective.

“Zullie? Are you there?”

I wonder where your body went. Gods don’t have bodies and neither do ghosts, so it makes sense that they would be able to enter another being—or object—but you most definitely had a flesh and blood meat sack carting around your consciousness until just now.

“Please don’t refer to me as a meat sack,” Arkk said, then looked over to Vezta. “Is everything working properly?”

“I see no issue. You are fully in control of the body?”

Arkk held out a hand and drummed his fingers in the air. Slowly, he started walking around the library. His walk picked up into a light jog around the large desk. Surprisingly enough, despite his initial disorientation, he wasn’t having any trouble moving around. He had thought the smaller legs would have thrown him off, but once he started moving, it all came as naturally as if Zullie’s body had been his all along.

Please stop. You’re getting me sweaty.

Slowing down, not wanting to upset his magical researcher, Arkk stopped next to Vezta. From the information she had shoved into his mind when first teaching him the spell, he knew roughly how to end the spell. His magic was still being siphoned from him, slowly but surely. Pulling back on it for just a moment had him staggering in place.

Zullie almost toppled over, but Vezta’s quick movements saved them both from an unfortunate fall to the ground.

Back in his comfortable tunic, Arkk patted himself down, just making sure that everything was where it was supposed to be. Across from him, Zullie was doing much the same. Almost in the same patterns too, making him wonder if he was somehow still controlling her.

Then she opened her mouth.

“Fascinating,” she said, reaching for her pen. She somehow managed to speak and write at the same time. “Being a passenger in my own body is not anything I ever expected to experience. I could feel your magic thrumming through my bones. No matter how hard I tried, I was unable to reassert control. I’ve heard of people fighting off ghostly possession but perhaps I need more experience…”

“I did hear you talking to me,” Arkk said. “Or talking to yourself. Not sure which. Once I started moving, it felt perfectly natural to walk around in your body.”

Zullie bobbed her head, adding his commentary to her notes. “We should soak you in water and then have you possess someone for an extended period of time.”

Arkk blinked. “Why?”

“I am curious to discover whether the water will have dried or if you will emerge as wet as you were before.”

“That makes sense. See if my body changes while it doesn’t… uh, exist? That could be vital if I get wounded. I could possess someone and ride their body around until I could reach someone capable of healing my body…” Arkk paused, an odd sense of disassociation hitting him. “This is also the strangest thing I’ve ever talked about.”

“Will you possess me now, Master?” Vezta asked, all of her eyes staring at him.

Arkk hesitated before slowly shaking his head. With how natural Zullie’s body had felt after a few minutes, he would probably get the hang of Vezta’s body, but… her body was just so very different. The thought of having so many eyes, limbs, and whatever minor shapeshifting ability she had to turn her thick tendrils into a long dress felt disorienting just imagining it.

“Later,” he said, not sure how much he meant it. Vezta accepted the response without any disappointment, just a slight bow of acknowledgment. “I actually had a job for Zullie. I’m sorry for disturbing your work. Both of you,” he said, looking from Vezta to Zullie. “But this could be important.”

“I live to serve,” Vezta said with another bow.

Zullie, on the other hand, shot him a dirty look. “Is this job related to your magic?”

“Not exactly.” Arkk winced at the flash of irritation in her violet eyes. “I’m planning to send some of the orcs to protect an expedition to some ancient pyramid. I would like it located and assessed before committing, however.”

“Assessed?”

“For danger as well as possible value in seeking it out. Lost magical knowledge, treasure, or anything similar.”

Zullie nodded with a small frown. “And you want me to do that? I thought… Vezta was our scrying professional. I can use a crystal ball, but—”

“Vezta is working on a different project for me,” Arkk said, looking at the monster for a moment before turning his attention back to Zullie. “If there is some pyramid out in the highlands, I assume it will be much easier to locate than a person. If you cannot locate it, it isn’t that big of a deal. I just prefer being forewarned about any dangers.”

“I suppose if I’m being paid to do this,” Zullie said, grumbling as she looked back to her notes. “You want me to pause the magic research?”

“Just for a few hours,” Arkk said, handing over his own notes on the mercenary job. “This is all the information I know. Spend at least a few hours today and tomorrow on it. If you haven’t found anything by nightfall tomorrow, you can stop.”

“Understood,” Zullie said with a sigh, looking over the notes. After a long moment, she walked over to the crystal ball in the library and hunched over it.

“Vezta…” Arkk said, thinking about what Rekk’ar had mentioned as he led her out of the room and away from Zullie. Once they were down the hall, he asked, “There are other fortresses like this, right?”

“Today? I do not know, but I doubt it. In the days of my former master? I wouldn’t have said they were common, but there were certainly a number around.”

“Do you know if there was one in the Cliff mountainside? The magical academy there reminds me a lot of this place.”

“The location you visited recently?” Vezta hummed. “It wasn’t called Cliff at the time, but I do believe that there was a Keeper of the [HEART] operating in the area. Malachite? Mendechaus, perhaps? I suppose whoever it was is long dead.”

“I wonder if I should make a contract with it next time I am there—”

Vezta started, actually losing her smile as she gripped Arkk’s arm. “Do not claim an unknown [HEART], Master. Your [HEART] is your heart.”

“Wasn’t I supposed to claim more for your other task?”

“Yes, but not on a whim…” Vezta trailed off, eyes shifting away from Arkk for a moment. “If you wish to merely expand your territory beyond great distances, beseeching the [PANTHEON] is the proper method. Other Keepers are known to lay traps, sabotage, or otherwise make it unpleasant for others to take what is theirs. In addition, there are many types of [HEART] devices and not all are compatible with each other. I must protest any action toward another [HEART]. If you discover one, inactive, we can assess it together.”

Never in the several weeks that Arkk had known Vezta had she used such passion and fervor while speaking. In tense situations, such as nearly being overwhelmed by goblins, she always used a demure tone with a serene smile on her face. Even when discussing her former master’s final orders and her desire to see them through, she had spoken with a reserved reverence, not anything like this.

“Besides,” Vezta said, slowly returning to a calmer state. “It is highly likely that any [HEART] in the area is already dead.”

Arkk, licking his lips, drew a breath and asked, “Why do you say that?”

“Have you forgotten what the surface looks like here? If there are people and plants near a still-living [HEART], I would be surprised. Unless, of course, someone claimed it or the [HEART] discovered another method of survival. I cannot rule either out, but find it unlikely given the location and population.”

“Hearts would be in other Cursed Forests,” Arkk said with a frown. “I understand.”

Vezta nodded, looking relieved. “I apologize for my outburst, Master. I merely wished to impress upon you the gravity of the situation.”

“No, it’s fine. There is a lot I don’t know and I appreciate you warning me before I bumble into problems. I was just thinking it would be nice to be able to teleport around Cliff at will… Vezta, are there more of your kind around? Perhaps near the fortress of this possible dead Heart?”

“If there are, I have not heard of such a thing.” Vezta smiled. “I would not be surprised to find that I am the last of my kind on this plane.”

“That’s… I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Vezta shook her head, side to side. “I suppose it is a bit too peaceful like this.” Arkk raised an eyebrow, but Vezta simply bowed.

Shrugging, Arkk asked, “How is opening the portal coming along?”

Vezta clasped her hands together, rubbing a thumb against the back of her hand. “Not as well as I had hoped. I aim to recruit your magical researcher to my efforts, but she is still familiarizing herself with magic and life here. Perhaps… ask me for a progress report in two weeks?”

“I can do that.” Arkk nodded, then asked. “And the other task I assigned to you?”

“Scrying for the girl? I had something to report on that matter. I searched through the Darkwood forest. It appears incompatible with human existence, being filled with dangers I don’t believe any individual is likely to survive. Because of that, I focused a great deal on the burg. I spotted someone matching the description you gave me.”

“You found her?” Arkk perked up. His whole plan to get invited to the Duke’s party revolved around making a name for themselves. Rescuing a viscount’s daughter was their ticket to that renown.

Vezta held up a hand with a small frown. “There was an issue. I spotted a woman, but she possesses an artifact of some type that allows her to hide from my sight.”

“Hide how?”

“Invisibility.”

“Is that possible?” Arkk said, eyes widening.

“My former master has a spell that would allow that, but from what I observed of your missing woman, she possesses an article of clothing with a similar spell effect woven into it.”

Invisibility could be a problem, but… “She is there, right?”

“As of this afternoon, yes.”

“Then I’ll leave at once. If she shows again, alert me and I’ll focus on you and your crystal ball.”

Vezta canted her head. “If I were there in person, I imagine I would be able to track her.”

Arkk bit his lip then shook his head. “No. The inquisitors will be searching for any sightings of you. I need you to keep things running here anyway. With Olatt’an out, it’s just you and Rekk’ar. Luckily, we’re sending a few orcs out to that ancient pyramid, some are with Ilya, and I’ll be taking a few as well. There won’t be too many here.”

“Understood,” Vezta said with a bow. Her movements were the same as they ever were, but Arkk still felt a hint of disappointment in her tone. “If there is nothing else, I shall see to the tasks you assigned me.”

“No, that’s all. Thank you, Vezta.”

She bowed again before turning. Arkk watched her back—and the array of glowing yellow eyes that traveled down her spine—for a long moment until she turned down a different corridor. Pressing his lips into a small frown, Arkk turned and, after a few steps, teleported away.

 

 

 

Three days into her journey and Ilya was starting to question whether this was a good idea.

When younger, her mother had told her about her people. The elven community that had raised her mother was somewhere in the northwestern areas of the Duchy of Mystakeen. A locale known as Marrowlands Fen. Geographically, it was an interesting area. Lots of islands of varying sizes right on the edge of the ocean with people living on most if not all of them.

Unfortunately, Alya’s stories had not included directions. They had been less stories and more anecdotes of her time among them. One story in particular, the one that set Ilya off on this idea in the first place, had been about Alya’s younger sister. An elf by the name of Prya who, according to Alya, made the most beautiful clothing in all the elven village. That would have been about six hundred years ago. Hopefully, Prya had kept up with her tradecraft in the time since then.

Ilya wasn’t sure what she would find when she arrived but she was hoping that her mother’s family was around. Not just for Prya but for all of her mother’s family. She could probably find any elven commune and find a centuries-old elf with plenty of practice at tailoring elegant dresses but she doubted that she would find real help.

She had never thought she would be able to rescue her mother from the clutches of the Duke. Arkk, the fortress, their newfound wealth, and the strange assistance offered by a pre-Calamity monster made that impossibility sound ever so slightly achievable. Yet, of all the things she listed, she really only trusted Arkk. Family, even family she had never met, would hopefully both help recover her mother—even if only by making clothing—and help keep them from letting all this wealth and power go to their heads.

The problem was getting there.

“I see, thank you,” Ilya said.

“This is the last burg you’ll find for about a week of travel if you’re heading up in that direction.” The butcher helping her load salted meat into the back of her cart talked as he worked. “There are a few villages dotted here and there but you might not be able to resupply as much as you want. I would suggest you prepare but…” He laughed, slapping a crate on the lid. “You’ve practically cleaned me out of all my preserved meat.”

“I wonder if I should get more,” she hummed, more to herself than to him.

The butcher heard anyway. “More? This’ll last five a month.”

“I’m traveling with about a dozen. Orcs,” she added. “They eat a bit more than most.”

“A dozen orcs?” The old man glanced around, looking more suspicious now than he had before “You aren’t in trouble, are you?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. They’re bodyguards. We all work for Company Al-Mir.”

“Ah. Mercenary business? They aren’t helping you supply up?”

“Something like that,” Ilya said. “And they are. They’re just getting supplies elsewhere,” she lied. In an attempt to change the topic, she quickly asked a question before he could say anything else. “Any dangers on the road ahead?”

“Always dangers. The western side of the duchy has slavers and bandits running amok. They practically run the whole area.” He let out a small laugh, looking around once again. “If you’re traveling with a dozen battle-hardened orcs, I doubt you’ll get any trouble though. They like easy targets.”

“They run the area? What about the Duke’s men?”

“Too busy manning the border. Word passing through here is that the damn Sultanate is getting a bit uppity these days,” he said with a sad shake of his head. “Lots of soldier-types making their way over there as of late. Times are getting interesting but… I think I prefer boring times.”

“I get that,” Ilya said as she secured the crates in the back of the cart. “Thanks for your help. I’d best get moving.”

“Sure thing. Take care of yourself,” the butcher said, nodding his head. Dusting off his hands on his bloodstained apron, he turned and headed back into his shop.

Ilya quickly moved the cart. She went along to several other shops and purchased supplies. All on her own. Like the butcher, most questioned what she was doing, loading up so much traveling gear all for herself. She offered them the same excuse she gave the butcher. The others were just collecting their own supplies. Maybe the merchants would all have a get-together and talk about the strange woman buying up all the gear in town. They would realize that she had lied but by then, she would be long gone.

By the time she was finished, the light in the sky was dimming. She would have liked to have found a stayover to rest for the night. Unfortunately, she didn’t have that luxury at the moment. Ignoring the warnings of the burg’s guard, she ventured out onto the road and started traveling. She didn’t intend to make a full leg of the journey tonight, of course. Rather, she traveled along the road just until she spotted the dancing light of a fire burning off the beaten path.

Directing the horses off to the side of the road, she quickly came up to a camp of rowdy orcs, laughing and talking around a large bonfire. It was obvious that they were excited to be out of the fortress. Ilya was as well, if she were being honest. Sometimes it was easy to forget where that fortress was but the lack of sunlight and that constant feeling of wrongness that came from being in the Cursed Forest weighed heavily.

As soon as the lookout noticed her and called out to the others, a ripple spread through the group. Laughter cut off, voices died down, and soon enough, Ilya found herself standing in front of a dozen silent orcs. All of whom were staring.

“Took you long enough.”

Almost all were staring.

Olatt’an sat at the side of the bonfire, leaning against a toppled log in a lax pose, barely even glancing up to meet her eyes.

Ilya wasn’t sure if it was disrespect, his usual mellow demeanor, or if he knew that the way the other orcs acted at her arrival disturbed her but whatever the case, she vastly preferred his presence to that of the others. Still, his words incensed her.

“I took long enough? I had to walk around, carrying heavy crates and kegs all by myself from morning until sunset. And what did you lot do all day? Sat around on your fat asses? Why are you wanted in every burg in the Duchy? Dakka didn’t have this problem.”

“Dakka was new.”

“Young.”

“A runt,” someone said.

“Don’t call her that,” Ilya snapped. She let out a long, withering sigh. “This is going to be a long journey. You don’t need to make it longer by complaining about me when you lot are—”

“Did you say kegs?” Kazz’ak called out.

Ilya shot him a glare that faded before it could really begin. Reaching back over the cart, she threw off the tarp that kept their supplies out of the elements. Three large barrels sat horizontally in the back of the cart. “These two are water,” she said, standing and tapping a foot against two of them. “The third… is ale.”

A brief pause of silence shattered to pieces as a cheer ran through the crowd of orcs. They surged forward as one only to stop short as Ilya stomped a foot down on the cart’s edge.

“But!” she shouted. “This is going to be a long journey. Longer than we thought. The next burg is a week away and there is no guarantee they’ll have excess ale there. Marrowlands Fen is further than I thought, so we’ve got a long march ahead of us. If this is all gone tonight, well, I’m not going back to that burg for more.”

With that said, she jumped off the cart and stalked through the crowd until she reached the only orc that wasn’t gathering around the ale keg. She sank down against the log and crossed her arms.

“They’re going to be useless in the morning,” Olatt’an said.

“They better not be useless in the morning,” Ilya said, loud enough that at least a few of the orcs in the back heard.

“You didn’t have to get that.”

“Yeah… well,” Ilya started, voice softer. “I’m not here to be your friend. You lot are being paid to be out here. But if dropping a few silver on a bunch of alcohol gets them to stop tip-toeing around me, I’ll take it. That’s just going to make this trip drag on at a snail’s pace.”

“I understand the reasoning but drunk orcs will make it drag on as well,” Olatt’an said with a small chuckle. “Longer than we thought, huh?”

“A bit over two weeks to reach Marrowlands Fen from here. No idea about where the elves are located within the fen. Hopefully one of the burgs closer will have more information.”

“Hopefully,” Olatt’an repeated. Clapping his hands on his thighs, he stood. “Best get me a mug before they drain the entire keg.”

“You’re having some as well?” Ilya said, not bothering to hide the note of disappointment in her tone.

“If it is any good, it will be wasted on these runts. If it’s bad ale, well, I’m just sparing them from having to drink more.” Olatt’an flashed his tuskless grin. “I am an orc,” he said, turning away.

Ilya crossed her arms and glared at the tan orc’s back. “A long journey indeed,” she mumbled to herself.

She was wondering if this was a good idea at all.

The sea started to boil.

The Grand Old Church of Cliff City sat atop a small island jutting up from the water in the middle of the bay. The winding staircase that led up to the cathedral on top had a little-used path that ran downward. The stairs ended at a small boat dock, one that had hardly seen any use since the bridge had been built.

Agnete didn’t often come to the city of Cliff. When she did, it was usually for only a short amount of time. The life of an inquisitor rarely had them remaining in the larger settlements of the land. While cultists and other subversive elements did occasionally try to infest the city, local priests and bishops were usually enough to root them out. Inquisitors were sent out into the less well-traveled areas of the Kingdom where a deviant might be able to otherwise make their lair without anyone the wiser until after their plans came to fruition.

Moving from town to town. Incinerating a totem to a foul god. A witch burned there. There was always more to be done. Never staying for long. Perhaps someone ended up saved here or there. Agnete never got to meet them. It was always on to the next place, to stymie the seemingly endless tide of enemies of the Light.

It was a… cold existence.

There weren’t often moments to take for herself. Agnete had learned to cherish them when they came.

On a previous visit to Cliff, she had discovered this spot. Down the stairs of the Grand Old Church, past the unused dock, and around the rocky wall of the island was a small sandbar. The perfect spot to toss off her boots, her cloak, and the rest of her clothes and wade out into the waters.

The waters boiled against her bare skin.

Bending, Agnete scooped up a fistful of sand. The individual grains began to glow a white-hot as they began merging together into one smooth flow of molten glass. Ankles in the water, Agnete sat against a large stone and began to massage the liquid-like glass. She flicked her thumbnail through the glass, creating neat lines in the blob. Scooping up more sand, she added it to the mass, pulling out a sharp point from one end while rounding the other.

Agnete worked in silence. The only sounds were the waves slapping against the island and the sizzling noise of water turning to steam against her legs.

A chill wind swept over her. Normal cold didn’t bother Agnete in the slightest. This made her lock up. She stiffened, dropping the glass sculpture into the water as she bolted to her feet.

“Purifier.”

Agnete slowly turned, facing the dock just to the side of her little sandbar.

Darius Vrox stood on the worn wooden planks, leaning against one of the piles anchoring the dock to the ground. One hand was in his long coat’s pocket while the other drummed against the wood. Those fingers stopped abruptly as, behind his large round glasses, Darius narrowed his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Awaiting our next move, Sir.”

Darius looked over her before his eyes roamed over to the clothes she had left draped over the rope railing of the dock. “You get precious little time off. Can you not enjoy it like a normal person?”

Agnete opened her mouth but Darius held up a hand.

“I don’t care. Douglas and I have been going over the texts sent over by Central, trying to uncover exactly what we are dealing with. We’ve been stumped, mostly, but there is one thing I would like clarification on. You referred to the young man as empty. Elaborate.”

Pressing her lips together, Agnete thought back to her first meeting with Arkk back in the small town of Langleey. She was different than other people. Special in some ways, broken in others. Like other purifiers, she could wield fire magic without incantations or ritual circles. She could sense heat and fire even at a distance. And, within people, she could see embers. The soul. Or so she assumed. There had been no confirmation made by any of the Abbey of the Light’s researchers.

It was just what she felt.

“You and I have a flame inside us. He didn’t. I don’t know what that means.”

“Please don’t compare us,” Darius said with his half-smile. “It sickens me.”

Agnete clamped her jaw shut.

“Perhaps he is less human than we thought. Or what made him human has been removed.” Darius removed his hand from his pocket, shaking off a few flecks of frost before he started rubbing at his chin. “Could the creature be controlling him?”

Unsure as to whether or not Darius was asking her or merely wondering aloud to himself, Agnete played it safe and remained silent. Which, after a momentary pause, seemed to be the correct decision. Darius paid her little attention as he continued speaking.

“No. He seemed active and independent during our encounters. He has a proper history with the people of his village. They would likely have noticed something. Unless they had all been affected similarly?”

Feeling like that question was directed more toward her than the ambient aether, Agnete said, “Langleey’s baron felt normal to me. He had the same burning core inside him that… most people have.”

“Have you ever encountered someone with the same affliction as Mister Arkk?”

Agnete shook her head slowly. “No, Sir.”

“I see. Very well. Carry on with…” Darius looked around. “Whatever it is you were doing. Douglas and I will fetch you when we are ready to move again.”

“Understood.”

Darius turned and began his long climb up the steps toward the Grand Old Church. Agnete remained still, watching his back until he rounded the island’s mountain and vanished from view. Only then did she let out a warm sigh as she looked down at the water around her feet. The boiling stopped.

Reaching a hand into the water, Agnete felt around until her fingers found a smooth shape among the sandy grit. Standing upright, she withdrew a small glassy raven. A bit of seaweed had gotten tangled around its neck. She spent a moment trying to untangle it but only seemed to make the problem worse. Frustrated, she sent a surge of heat through her arm.

The seaweed noose burned away. The raven, unfortunately, did not come away unscathed from her burst of heat. It drooped, sagging into a shapeless blob.

Lips pressed together, Agnete turned up the heat to the point where small globs of glass ran between her fingers, falling to the sea below where they sizzled and cracked before rejoining the sand at the bottom.

That was why she was not allowed to help research in the archives. They didn’t want ancient and unique books going up in flames.

Cracking her neck, Agnete found her seat once again. She reached into the steaming water and pulled up a fresh fistful of sand.

 

 

“That was certainly a strange sensation,” Zullie said as she appeared within the halls of Fortress Al-Mir.

After Arkk explained the ‘hiring’ process to her over the week it took to return, she readily agreed. More in the interest of experiencing new magic than working for him, but as long as she was teaching him, Arkk wasn’t going to complain.

As soon as the cart had come within range of Fortress Al-Mir, Arkk had been able to move all the equipment, the cart and horse, and finally all four people. Arkk wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do with a horse underground, but he wanted off the roads as soon as possible. There had been no sign of the inquisitors following them. Arkk didn’t want to take the chance. If they were following, hopefully vanishing would throw them off.

Of course, they would just go to Langleey Village if they couldn’t find him, but he didn’t intend to go there anytime soon either.

Arkk sent Ilya and Dakka to their respective quarters, where they could clean up from the hasty journey they had just been on. As soon as he finished, he found Vezta, somewhere in the lower levels of the fortress, and pulled her in front of him and Zullie.

“Master,” Vezta said, bowing immediately without any sign of discomfort at her sudden relocation. “Welcome back. Several matters require your attention.”

“Emergencies?”

“No. The [HEART] chamber is overflowing with gold. Constructing a dedicated treasury will be required before we resume mining. In the interim, I have assigned your servants to expanding your territory toward both Langleey Village and the nearby burg.”

“Expansions?” Arkk said, quickly checking through the dungeon with his second sight.

“At the moment, they are little more than deep and narrow tunnels, easily defensible with the liberal application of traps. I presumed you would still wish to visit the village after the destruction of the teleportation circles and took the initiative. If that is not your desire, I apologize. We can collapse them easily.”

“No, that’s good,” Arkk said, pulling back. What he saw was exactly as Vezta described. “Don’t connect the passages with the surface yet. We might have trouble coming.”

“Trouble, Master?”

“Those inquisitors. They’re…” Arkk shook his head. “I’ll explain later. I want input from Olatt’an and Rekk’ar. First, this is Zullie.” Pausing to motion to his side, he found Zullie standing utterly still, wide-eyed with her mouth agape. “Zullie?”

Vezta’s eyes, both the glowing suns on her face as well as the smaller eyes dotted around her shoulders, wrists, and elsewhere shifted, focusing entirely on the woman she had been ignoring since appearing. After a moment, she cocked her head to the side. “Your latest minion appears to be faulty, Master.”

Arkk waved his hand in front of Zullie’s face, breaking the stupor. She blinked several times in a rapid fluttering before slowly turning her head toward Arkk. Although her head turned, her eyes were still locked on Vezta.

“This… isn’t a demihuman,” she whispered.

“I am the [SERVANT].”

“Zullie is a magical researcher from Cliff,” Arkk said. “I’ll be constructing quarters similar to my own and Ilya’s, but closer to the orc section of the fortress. I want you to teach her the lightning bolt spell after she gets settled.”

“Might I suggest placing her quarters near the library? That is the traditional location for magical research.”

Arkk paused, then nodded. “That’s doable.” Glancing to his side, he frowned at the woman who was once again staring. “Zullie,” he said, making her jump. “This is Vezta. She keeps the place tidy and running. And yes, she isn’t a demihuman. She’s pre-Calamity.”

“I… I…” Zullie’s jaw clamped shut. “If I were a magixenologist…”

“Try to get over the shock quickly,” Arkk said with a sigh. Ilya hadn’t acted like this. Neither had the orcs. Shaking his head, he glanced over to Vezta. “Gather everyone important for a meeting in… two hours. That includes Zullie and Dakka.”

“Understood. Shall I offer the malfunctioning human a tour while you construct sleeping quarters?”

Arkk nodded. “Best make sure the orcs know she is one of ours while you’re at it. I don’t want any accidents. Speaking of, has there been any trouble with them while I was gone?”

“There were some disgruntled murmurs that evolved into a small fight between a few of the orcs. Rekk’ar beat down the two most responsible, but several were involved. The two most injured are both recovering in the medical lair.”

“Permanent injuries?”

“Nothing particularly alarming. I tended to the worst wounds. I am no expert on orc physiology, but I would guess they will be back on their feet in another day or two.”

“I’ll speak with Rekk’ar then.”

Arkk didn’t bother to walk away. He instantly appeared in an empty room just down the hall from the library. A small pile of gold followed him. It was a rather small room and took a mere second to convert into the magical room that allowed inhabitants to construct their own private domiciles. The lair. If he hired more magical researchers in the future, he might have to figure out alternative living quarters, but for now, this should suffice for Zullie.

Quickly peeking into the [HEART] chamber, Arkk confirmed what Vezta had said. It was nearly impossible to stand anywhere without stepping on a pile of gold coins. Just how much gold was under the fortress anyway? A month ago, he might have fainted at the sight of all this wealth. Even now, knowing it all belonged to him had Arkk unsteady on his feet.

He wasn’t quite sure what building a proper treasury meant. As far as Arkk could tell, there wouldn’t be a problem just dumping it all into one of the many spare rooms the fortress had. He would have to ask Vezta later.

Before that, however, Arkk relocated out into the long tunnel that stretched between the fortress and Langleey Village. When Vezta had ordered the construction of the tunnel, she had done so with security in mind. Even though the [HEART] chamber was between the village and the orc section of the fortress, the tunnel stretched well past both before looping around. Any invading force that made it through the tunnel would have to face the orcs almost immediately after.

If Arkk had anything to say about it, an invading force wouldn’t make it through at all. Hearing about the abilities purifiers were said to possess did have him a little worried, but there wasn’t much he could do about that at the moment.

Whatever magic powered Fortress Al-Mir and the rooms it contained was a bit finicky in Arkk’s eyes. With a small pile of gold at his disposal, he could fashion a foundry that would make a king jealous. The fortress smithy could make expertly crafted tools, weapons, and even smaller things like doors and hinges. If he had a proper tailor, they could make the finest clothes in the land with all the expensive cloth and precision equipment that the fortress could provide.

However, the fortress seemed incapable of making an end product. He could expend gold to fill the tailor’s spools with bolts of the finest cloth, but he couldn’t make a cloak. Ingots of fine metal filled the smithy storage, but he couldn’t magically make a sword. He could make a room that would transform itself based on its occupants’ comfort needs, but he couldn’t make a room that came with a bed and desk if he so desired. At least not without heading to the drawing board to sketch that out. Even then, the desk and bed would be of far lower quality.

Vezta had said it back before he made the contract. The fortress wanted artisans for some reason. It needed intelligent beings to run the place.

Traps, as it turned out, counted as an end product. Something he couldn’t conjure up with a liberal application of gold. Yet, in a strange way, they were similar to rooms. He designated a location and determined the type of trap that he wanted, whereupon he would receive proper schematics to hand off to the blacksmith or whoever was required to build the thing.

Unfortunately, Arkk didn’t know much about trap building. Vezta didn’t have ready-made plans for traps. Not to mention, they seemed like it would be best to design bespoke traps for the location he was trying to defend.

Here, a long and narrow tunnel, Arkk had only two good ideas.

Dragging a lesser servant from elsewhere in the fortress, Arkk pointed along the tunnel. “Dig periodic pitfalls,” he said. It had worked on the orc chieftain. Large crevasses alone would work well to stymie intruders, but he was hoping to cover them with trapdoors that he could open at will.

Beyond pitfalls… there were probably a lot of things he could do. But having been to Cliff recently, Arkk took inspiration from the massive ballistae they had watching their front gate. Those things had been intended to throw log-sized arrows that would destroy catapults, trebuchets, or other large war machines. Presumably. He hadn’t asked anyone to confirm that suspicion.

In a narrow yet straight tunnel, a log-sized arrow would plow through an entire army if they tried to invade. Arkk doubted any army was going to come marching on the fortress but those inquisitors might. Although they hadn’t attacked him so far, after everything he had heard in Cliff from Zullie and Priest Heller, and what Vrox himself had said on their few encounters, Arkk doubted they would be all that happy to find Vezta or the fortress.

Maybe it was his contract with the [HEART], maybe it was the wealth, maybe it was a debt of gratitude toward Vezta, but he felt it was his responsibility to ensure that Fortress Al-Mir remained safe and secure.

Designating a location for a door at the far end of the tunnel—when doors were damaged, the fortress alerted Arkk, allowing him to get people ready to man the ballista or otherwise defend the place—Arkk felt he had at least a good start. He moved to the other tunnel, the one headed to Smilesville Burg, and repeated the same defenses over there. Once done, he moved to the smithy.

Detailed designs for the defensive parts needed were already up on the board. Or, at least, the metal parts were. Arkk presumed the wooden parts would have to come from elsewhere. He did not currently have a lumber processing room, so perhaps he would commission pieces from John. Or just invite the carpenter down into the fortress, not that Arkk thought he would want to live inside permanently.

They had sealed up all the fissures in the ceilings, but there was a certain temptation to open a few intentional areas for allowing a little sunlight to reach the living areas of the fortress and make it a little more palatable to live within. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be much of a fortress if it were full of holes.

Satisfied that things would proceed for the time being, Arkk focused on Rekk’ar. The burly orc was in the middle of a meal, seated in the large feasting hall not far from the kitchens. Arkk didn’t appear directly in front of the orc; Vezta didn’t mind sudden appearances, but popping out of nowhere tended to disturb most everyone else unless they were expecting it. Instead, Arkk appeared outside the door, which promptly swung open to admit his passage.

A few others were eating as well, all of whom looked up as Arkk walked by. Two looked like they weren’t sure if they should stand. Arkk gave them a brief nod of his head as a greeting but didn’t stop until he reached the head of a long table. Rekk’ar, notably, did not get up. He barely looked up from his roast chicken dinner.

“You’re back.”

“Only just,” Arkk said, taking the seat next to the orc. “I heard there was trouble while I was gone. Two people are in the medical lair?”

“Nothing that couldn’t be handled,” Rekk’ar grunted, tearing off a strip of chicken with his teeth.

“They’re getting restless,” Olatt’an said, walking alongside the table. He took a seat across from Arkk, setting a plate of chicken down as he did so. “I’ve seen it before among prisoners and ship crew. They become agitated, distraught, and occasionally violent from prolonged confinement. It isn’t so bad right now—those two have been at each other’s throats since I was in charge—but you can just feel the unease in the air. It won’t be the last time a fight breaks out like that.”

Arkk wasn’t at all surprised to hear that the old orc had been imprisoned before. He simply nodded. “I learned a bit about how mercenaries work while I was gone. I’m not sure what might be offered locally, but in the city, there were a variety of jobs that I think we could do. Maybe even enjoy.” Arkk glanced between the two orcs. “How do you feel about gorgons?”

That got Rekk’ar to stop eating. The green-skinned orc stared, eyes narrowing. Olatt’an, on the other hand, just started shaking his head with a few low chuckles.

“Gorgons?” Rekk’ar said after a long moment. “More than one?”

“The posting I saw didn’t say how many, exactly, but it said the mine was overrun. I presume that means at least a few.”

“I’m not here to throw my life away for you,” Rekk’ar snarled.

Arkk held up his hands, leaning back in the chair. “That was pretty much the advice I got when I was looking at the job. Just thought I’d ask.”

Rekk’ar bared his tusks before turning back to his food.

“In that case, there were several other things. I presume you don’t care what it is, within reason, as long as we get people some exercise and fresh air?”

“If gorgons are your upper limit, I would be fascinated to discover what ‘within reason’ means,” Olatt’an said, still chuckling.

“Don’t accept any job without running it by me first,” Rekk’ar said. With that, he dove back into his meal.

“Slightly too late for that,” Arkk said with a wince that he tried to keep off his face. At Rekk’ar’s glower, he quickly added, “Nothing on the level of gorgons, just a missing girl. I plan to have Vezta try to scry for her.”

The orc glowered but nodded his head. “Doesn’t sound like good exercise.”

“I’ll see about stopping by Smilesville Burg tomorrow.” The tunnel wasn’t finished yet, but the servants would continue their work overnight. If they dug a small shaft to the surface, he should be able to get out to the burg early on. “Sorry for disturbing your meal. I’d like to have a proper meeting in about an hour. Vezta will be by around then to collect you.”

Rekk’ar just grunted while Olatt’an waved him away as Arkk stood. Rekk’ar felt a little testy during that brief conversation, making Arkk wonder if he had actually been injured in the fight and was hiding it, if he was getting a little stir-crazy himself, or if he just didn’t like having his meal interrupted.

Whatever the case, Arkk walked away a few steps before teleporting once again.

“—shouldn’t be possible,” Zullie shouted, waving her arms around her new quarters.

Before, it had just been a carpeted chamber. A fairly small one at that. Zullie now stood in front of a thick bed, large enough for several people to share with comfort. A translucent sheer curtain hung from a single point on the wall, stretching to all four corners of the bed. Next to the bed, glowing crystals adorned a large desk. On top sat an alchemical station for concocting small potions and a small stack of books.

Zullie had a book in her hand, open to a page toward the end. She had her hand on the page, glaring at it.

Vezta simply stood to the side, faint smile looking a little more strained than usual.

“Is there a problem?” Arkk asked, stepping inside.

“You!” Zullie shouted, stomping over to him. She thrust the book out toward him, almost striking him in the face as she held it open for him to see. “What is the meaning of this?”

The page was filled with text in tight, neat scrawl. Handwritten, not made using a printing press. There was far too much to read at the moment, so Arkk gently pushed the book down to meet Zullie’s violet eyes. “Was your book damaged when we transported it?”

“It isn’t my book. I’ve never seen it before in my life. But it’s my spell,” she said. “I invented it. Why is it in a book that just appeared in the room? How did the room just appear? Why is it in my handwriting?”

Arkk had exactly zero answers for the woman. Looking over her shoulder, he met Vezta’s eyes.

The servant just shrugged. As she had said several times, she was just a servant. She knew a little magic, apparently from when her former master had possessed her then used that magic, and she knew about the [HEART]. The details of how it functioned were never made available to her.

“Magic,” Arkk said with a smile.

That was the wrong answer. He could see it in Zullie’s face.

Before she could start yelling again, he held up his hands. “I don’t know for sure, but I imagine whatever runs this place is pre-Calamity. Who knows how it really works? But that’s why I hired you, right? Unlock the mysteries of all this old magic… and maybe craft some spells with this old magic that are short enough to be worth using in active combat.”

“Pre-Calamity,” Zullie whispered to herself as she looked at the book with wide eyes, awed by whatever nonsense Arkk had just tried to placate her with.

He had no idea if it was even possible to figure out how anything here worked. But then, he wasn’t a spell researcher. Zullie was.

“Anyway, was just checking in. I’ll leave you to your tour,” Arkk said.

Before she could interrupt, he appeared outside a wooden door elsewhere in the fortress. Gently, Arkk tapped his knuckles against the door.

“Come in!”

Arkk stepped into the castle-like room that Ilya called her own. She sat at a large desk with several rolls of vellum set out before her. The outfit that the tailor servant had made was propped up on her bed, currently on the receiving end of intense scrutiny. As Arkk stepped closer to Ilya, she frowned as he looked over the papers. Each had a little sketch of clothing. Some dresses, some suits, others chemise with long gowns, surcoats, and more besides.

“What’s all this?” Arkk asked, motioning to the array of papers. “Getting into fashion?”

Ilya looked over them, then to the nice gown spread out on the bed. “It isn’t enough,” she said with a sigh. “You didn’t see them, but the clothing that the people at the Duke’s manor had would make this look like a peasant’s work clothes.”

“I thought it was a nice dress.”

“Compared to anything in Langleey, maybe. I just feel like we’ll be laughed out of any party we manage to get into. Assuming we can get into one in the first place.”

“We will,” Arkk said. “I have been stirring a bit of a plan for that.”

“Oh?”

“Not quite fully realized. It’ll take a bit to get running and has to do with the viscount we ran into. I’ll tell you about it with the others in an hour. We’re having a little meeting regarding what we learned in Cliff, so be ready.” Arkk looked over at the dress. “Though perhaps it would be a good thing if we could hire a proper tailor if you say it isn’t good enough.”

“It isn’t.”

“I wonder where we would find someone.”

Ilya frowned for a long moment, staring at the dress. She reached out and rubbed its long sleeve, then her eyebrows popped up. “I… might have an idea.”

“Oh?” Arkk said, returning her earlier question.

“Not quite realized… but why don’t you leave finding a tailor to me.”

“You know a tailor?” Arkk asked, not believing her for a moment. Having grown up with her, he knew what she knew and she did not know a tailor aside from Higgens in Langleey. They had already dismissed him as a possibility.

“I don’t know anyone specifically… Can I take a few orcs on a little road trip to the north? I remember my mother talking about her ancestral home. There have to be elves there both capable of making good clothes and willing to help her out.”

“You… want to go visit other elves?” Arkk said, suddenly feeling a tightening sensation in his chest. He tried to push it down, to ignore it.

Ilya noticed and promptly rolled her eyes. “Arkk. Please. This is for my mother, nothing else. Even if it was for something else,” she started, but stopped with a shake of her head. “I could try to go on my own, but I thought a few bodyguards would make the trip safer.”

“No. No. Don’t go alone,” Arkk said with a slow nod of his head. “If they agree to go, take the orcs with you.”

Ilya glared. “Are you paying them or not? Tell them to go, boss.”

“Point. I guess,” Arkk said with a sigh. “And it would get some of them out of here for a while.” It would be something to bring up with Olatt’an and Rekk’ar at the meeting. “When are you thinking you’re going to leave? And how soon?”

“We’ll set off in the morning. Then…” she shrugged. “A week after that to reach Marrowlands Fen, plus a few days there? And the same to return. Maybe more. I’ve never been there. I don’t know how long it will take to reach.”

“Give me something a little more defined at the meeting, but I’ll probably say yes.”

“Good. Then get out of here. I need to plan,” she said, then started pulling open drawers on her desk, mumbling to herself, “I need a map…”

Arkk smiled despite the unease in his chest, watching her work for a few moments before he turned. With how listless she had been after their arrival at Cliff, seeing her moving and working was a relief. Hopefully, she would keep it up.

Heading to the adjacent room, Arkk kicked off his boots and sat down on the bed, finally ready to rest for a while before the meeting started.

 

 

“Dakka,” Arkk said under his breath. “Are you aware that there are about eight demihumans following us?”

Arkk could see his employees wherever they were, in the fortress or out here in Cliff. He could see a little bit of the area around his employees as well. At least while outside the fortress. For those inside Fortress Al-Mir, he could see everything if he focused. It was an odd sort of vision. A bit like going cross-eyed from drinking too much, except instead of seeing two of whatever was in front of him, he saw whatever he was focused on.

Out here, in the periphery of Dakka, he could see several orcs, a lizardman, and two elves following some distance behind as he walked along the streets with Dakka at his side.

They had been following them since they left the Primrose.

“Cowards and weaklings,” Dakka said with a huff, glancing over her shoulder. As she did so, most of those following stopped and tried to look busy with anything else. That just had her scoffing. “I recognize a few of them. People I’ve been gambling with lately.”

“Have you been cheating?” Arkk asked, mildly exasperated.

“Hardly.”

“So, a little.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dakka said with a grunt. “We can take them.”

“I don’t want to take them,” Arkk hissed. “The inquisitors are already breathing down my neck. If I start throwing around forbidden magic—”

“Didn’t your new minion teach you a different lightning spell?”

“She isn’t a minion. You’re not a minion.” Ignoring Dakka’s scoff, Arkk continued, “She did, but I don’t think a seventeen-syllable spell that can only produce one bolt of lightning per incantation is actually valid for combat. How do other spellcasters do it?”

“Ask your new minion,” Dakka said with a shrug as they kept walking along the road. “Plans for the group behind us?”

“Stay out of dingy alleys? They won’t attack us in the open, will they?”

“They’ll probably stick around, keeping watch until we return. Jump us on the way back.” Dakka paused, then added, “Or they might head back and break into our room, hoping to get some coin that way.”

Arkk slowed down, frowning. Ilya was in the room. Ever since her little escapade to the Duke’s manor, she had not been all that lively. Even the promise that they would come back, properly prepared and ready to infiltrate one of the Duke’s parties hadn’t gotten her fully back to normal. It was her mother’s actions that bothered her.

To Arkk, it had sounded like a wise move on Alya’s part. Unless Ilya had very much misrepresented the situation in her retelling, it sounded like Ilya had been about to assassinate the Duke. Arkk didn’t like the Duke any more than Ilya did, but that was the worst possible decision. They would never be able to simply kill the Duke in the middle of his city and get away.

Thanks to Alya, he didn’t have to deal with his friend’s momentary lapse in judgment.

He still had to deal with his employee’s trouble, however.

“We can’t let them go back to the Primrose. Ilya could probably get away normally, but with her moping about? I’d be worried.”

“We are going to take them, then?” Dakka asked with a grin. “Next backstreet past that building is a good spot.”

Arkk shot Dakka a glare. “Why do you know good spots for this kind of stuff?”

The dumb orc just grinned wider, but her grin stalled as she put on a serious expression. “They won’t fight like we did,” Dakka said in a hushed tone. “Rough them up a little and they’ll run with their tail between their legs. Literally, in the case of the lizardman. Frying them is going to be more trouble than it is worth.”

“I wasn’t planning on frying them,” Arkk said as they turned down the indicated alley. “And those elves just stopped following us. I think they heard.”

“Good. Two we don’t have to worry about.” Dakka paused, then shrugged as she leaned up against one building halfway down the alley. “Don’t remember pissing off any elves anyway.”

“But all the others following us have valid reasons, I’m sure,” Arkk said with a sigh.

Dakka didn’t get to respond before a quartet of orcs rounded the corner, followed closely by a lizardman. She barely glanced at them, not budging from her spot against the wall where she leaned with her arms crossed. “Depends on how valid you think losing some coin is.”

“How much coin?”

Glancing down, Dakka grabbed a large pouch that clanked as it moved. It filled her hand completely. Although she was small for an orc, she was still larger than Arkk, making it quite the hefty sack of money. “About three of these. Mostly silver. A few gold.”

“Hey!” the orc at the head of the group yelled.

“I could just pay them off,” Arkk said, eyes still on Dakka. “I’m rich, apparently.”

“They’ll just want more and more.”

“I’m—”

“We’re talking here!” Dakka shouted at the orc who was interrupting. Then she adopted a kind of smile Arkk had seen on orcs now and again. The kind that fully bared the lower tusks. “I know you,” she said, staring at the orc. She cracked her neck back and forth. Loud pops echoed between the worn planks of the wooden buildings. “You listened to my advice and brought friends. This’ll be fun.”

“Fun,” Arkk scoffed. “I was hoping to bump into Hawkwood with you, and now—”

Arkk leaped to the side, narrowly dodging a stone. His eyes snapped to the lizardman who threw it from a sling. If he hadn’t seen it through his… whatever his observational vision might be called, it would have hit him square in the chest. Probably with enough force to crack a rib.

The lizardman was in the middle of fetching another stone from a pouch at his hip, but his motions slowed under Arkk’s glare. The stone slipped from his fingers, clunking against the ground. An orc faltered, staring at Arkk with wide eyes. Given that the orc had been about to strike Dakka with a wooden club, it was far from the most opportune time to let his guard down. Dakka’s fist met his face, sending him sprawling to the ground.

Another orc, who had been ready to back up the first, jumped back well before Dakka hit the first. One orc, toward the back, turned and ran. The rest backed away slowly yet surely. One orc helped the fallen one up. Both turned and ran.

In a few seconds, the alley was empty.

Arkk looked around, making sure that Cliff’s guard force hadn’t marched up behind him, but there was no one there. Just him and Dakka.

“When you said we would have to rough them up, I thought you meant a bit more than that,” Arkk said with a frown. “You would think they would have put up more of a fight. Not that I’m complaining.”

“You mean, you didn’t do that on purpose?”

“Do… what?”

“That eye thing. Your eyes flashed red when that lizard threw the rock at you. Bright glowing red.”

“What? But…” Arkk trailed off, staring at himself from an outside perspective. As far as he could tell, he looked entirely normal.

“You’ve done it a few times,” Dakka said. “In the barrows once or twice, when Kazz’ak ambushed me. Those are just the times I saw it. I thought you were doing it on purpose. Glowing eyes are a pretty ominous omen. Figured you were trying to scare people.”

Arkk let out a small groan. “I think I need to talk to Vezta.”

“She has glowing eyes too.” Dakka shrugged. “Just saying…”

Shaking his head, Arkk looked down the backstreet. “They’re going to spread this around, aren’t they? Word of this is going to reach the inquisitors’ ears one way or another,” he said with a sigh. “I think we’ve overstayed our welcome in Cliff.”

“Sorry,” Dakka said, sounding genuine. “Probably should have held back a bit in the gambling.”

“It’s fine,” Arkk said with a sigh. “We’re just leaving a little earlier than planned. Go back to Primrose. Get Ilya and the cart. I’ll grab Zullie. We’ll meet outside the gate.”

They had already been planning on leaving in the morning, intending to return in the future after having come up with a way to get into one of the Duke’s parties. One day early wouldn’t matter. He already had what he needed from the city.

The sooner he put some distance between himself and the inquisitors, the better. For some reason, he doubted that Darius Vrox would turn and run if his eyes flashed red.

“You aren’t worried about me walking back on my own?” Dakka asked, insincere tone clear in her voice.

“You were about ready to fight all of them with me sitting it out, weren’t you?”

“The people in this city are soft, Arkk. Compared to what I’ve lived through? Five orcs and their lizard pet are fodder to be pushed aside.”

“Exactly,” Arkk said, shaking his head. “Meet me at the gates outside the city.”

“Sure thing, boss.” With a lazy wave, Dakka headed back the way they had come.

Arkk turned away, heading in the opposite direction. He started slowly at first, then picked up the pace with every step until he was in a swift jog. The sooner they left, the better. Those inquisitors would hear about some human with glowing eyes and he wanted to be nowhere nearby when they did.

Hurrying past the large statue at the Cliff Magical Academy’s entrance and into its labyrinth of corridors, Arkk quickly found himself at the door to Zullie’s office. After their meeting with Ilya and Dakka, he had come back the next day to help pack. And to take a look at the magical books she had. Most of her books and equipment were at the Primrose, ready to be loaded into the cart. Zullie, however, wanted even more. Having seen her office, Arkk well knew that it had far more books than even Fortress Al-Mir’s library before he remodeled it.

He was entirely unsurprised to find her trying to fit two too many books into an open crate.

“There is a limit to how much we can pack on the cart before the horse starts having trouble,” Arkk said. One crate probably wasn’t going to hurt, but he could see five empty crates up against the wall just waiting to be filled.

Zullie, rectangular glasses hanging off the end of her nose, squinted at Arkk over the rims. Setting one of the offending books down, she shoved the glasses up her face and frowned. “Are you a spellcaster or not?”

“Uh…”

Slapping the lid on the crate and securing it with a little metal latch, she turned it on its side, showing off the bottom. On one of the thick planks that made up the crate, Zullie had inscribed a complex ritual circle. She slapped her hand to it, held it there for a moment, then pulled back. Bright white lines of magic covered the circle for a moment before fading to a dull, barely-visible glow.

Grabbing hold of the crate, Zullie hefted it up and tossed it at him. Arkk grimaced, leaning a bit too far forward in anticipation of the weight. When it hit, he had to quickly step forward to keep from falling at the lack of its expected weight. Steadying himself, he held the crate in one hand.

“This feels like holding one book,” Arkk said, flipping the crate upside-down to get a better look at the ritual circle. “Not twenty.”

“A featherweight ritual. You haven’t used one before? Don’t know how people get things done without them.”

“I only know a few rituals,” Arkk admitted, hesitant. She had seen his lightning spell and was interested in that but didn’t exactly want to frighten her off by revealing himself to be the country louse that he was. “One that is either fire or light and I’m not sure which or if I’m doing it wrong, a tracking ritual—”

“That is a fairly complex ritual to know while not knowing featherweight.”

“Yeah,” Arkk said with a shrug. “I’m kind of self-taught. Picked up a few other rituals from travelers to my village. Though I do know a teleportation ritual, I’m not sure exactly how to set a destination. Something I should talk about with Vezta,” Arkk mumbled to himself.

“A… what?”

“Is that not a commonly known ritual?”

“Teleportation?” Zullie narrowed her eyes. “I don’t even know what that word is supposed to mean.”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure either.”

“How are you not—”

“Zullie!”

The door flung open behind Arkk. Priest Heller, panting slightly, looked around the room with worry on his thin face. That worry abruptly vanished when he spotted Zullie standing upright at her desk. He looked at her, confused, before shaking his head. “Thought you fainted again.”

“And just why would you think that?”

“Last time an inquisitor pulled up to the academy, you were in trouble,” he said with a shrug. “Worried you needed help, but now that I see you don’t, I’m going to leave. If they are here for you, I don’t want to be anywhere nearby.” With a curt nod of his head, Heller vanished as quickly as he appeared, leaving the door to gently swing shut behind him.

“Inquisitors,” Zullie said, nose wrinkling. “Again?”

Arkk, tense, moved to the door and peered out down the corridor. The priest was hurrying down the hall away from the entrance and a few others were walking about. No sign of the inquisitors yet.

They couldn’t possibly know about his eyes already, could they?

“We need to leave.”

“Leave?” Zullie rolled her eyes. “They do this once a year or so. Harass me and my good work. I was asleep when he came by, so he’s come back for that. Darius will come and frown at me for a few minutes—”

“They aren’t here for you,” Arkk said. “They’re here for me. Is there another way out of this place? Other than the front entrance.”

“After you?”

“I can explain later.” Arkk paused, then glanced back to Zullie. “If you still want to go with me knowing the inquisitors are after me, that is.”

“We haven’t done anything since their last visit,” Zullie said, crossing her arms.

“For some reason, I can’t shake the feeling that Vrox won’t be too friendly if he catches me. I don’t want to start a fight here. I don’t know what kind of sorcery he knows, but even if I do beat him, I won’t be able to beat all the city’s guards.”

“You’re serious.”

Arkk didn’t even finish nodding his head before she grabbed his arm and dragged him out into the hall. She took off in haste, heading away from the entrance. Without a word, she led him down one corridor, another, then crossed around another long corridor.

“You owe me,” Zullie said as they entered into a much darker and less well-traveled section of the academy. “All my poor books that I hadn’t packed…”

“That is what you’re worried about?”

“The most valuable ones are with your cart. They’re still safe, right?”

Quickly checking on Ilya and Dakka, he found both just barely leaving the stables next to the Primrose. As far as he could tell, there were still six crates of books in the back. “Yeah.”

“Then it isn’t a great loss. The academy will take care of them. But…” Zullie sighed.

She didn’t stop walking.

The corridors were becoming dustier and dustier. The glowstones on the walls weren’t doing much glowing. He didn’t know the theory of why but presumed they needed some kind of magical upkeep to maintain their luminosity. “Where are we going?” Arkk asked, eying the tiles on the floor.

He had thought of it before, but this place was similar to Fortress Al-Mir. The tiles weren’t his compass rose tiles, but they were close enough that he wouldn’t have been surprised to find the two places had been built by the same people.

“The academy is built into some old ruins. Dwarven, I think.”

“I thought dwarfs were extinct.”

“Very old ruins,” Zullie corrected herself. “This whole mountain is filled with crossing passages and unused rooms. Only the front section is commonly used. Technically, these passages are off-limits. Rumor has it that foolish initiates wandered into the deeper tunnels and never wandered back out. I’ve never seen a skeleton back here; maybe I haven’t explored far enough.”

“Is there a way out?” Arkk asked. He didn’t like the idea of becoming one of those rumored skeletons.

“There are, but…” Zullie slowed, glancing back behind them. “Listen,” she said, holding up a hand.

Arkk didn’t hear anything, but her eyes widened.

Zullie glanced down at the floor under their feet. It was dim in the faded glowstone light, but the footprints in the dust were clear to see. Stepping away from Arkk, pushing him against the wall in the process, she held her hands out around her and began to spin in place, around and around. “Angin bertiup di sekitar saya dalam badai besar untuk menyapu musuh saya dari kaki mereka.”

If Arkk hadn’t been up against a wall, he would have been thrown off his feet from the sudden gale that ripped through the corridor. As it was, the crate of books ripped out from his grip and went skidding across the floor until it caught on the edge of a doorway and broke open, sending books everywhere down the hall.

Opening his jaw popped his ears, but he didn’t get a chance to ask about that spell before Zullie grabbed his hand and rushed down the hall, away from the broken crate. She took two turns—the floor on the way had been cleared of dust from her spell—and ducked into a room. She didn’t stop until she had pressed him back into the corner.

“What—”

“Do not move. You will break the spell,” she said, then motioned with her hands in front of them, holding them up with her palms facing toward the doorway. “Penyembunyian dari saksi mengambil bentuk apa yang paling diharapkan berdasarkan konteks daerah sekitarnya.”

Arkk braced himself, not wanting to get blown away. However, this wasn’t that wind spell. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was doing, but then he looked at Zullie in front of him and blinked in confusion. She was there… Yet, she was also just another stack of boxes in this old storage room they had found themselves in.

Arkk didn’t dare ask, not wanting to break her concentration. Soon enough, he didn’t want to ask for fear of alerting whoever was in the corridor. He could hear someone moving out there. Their boots thumped against the tile floors, slowly growing louder in a slow, steady rhythm. Every so often, the footsteps momentarily faded and were replaced with the sound of doors creaking open out in the hall.

The footsteps drew closer.

The woman he had seen with Vrox in Langleey stepped inside the storage room. In the dim light, the faint glow in her many scars was all the more apparent. The very center of her pupils lit up with the same yellow as her scars as her head slowly scanned the room, looking from one side to the other. When her gaze reached the corner they were hiding in, Zullie’s arms started trembling.

Arkk shuddered. No wonder the orcs had run off, assuming his eyes looked anything like that.

Agnete, if Arkk remembered her name right, didn’t do anything aside from turning and leaving. Her footsteps faded as she continued down the hall, occasionally stopping as she opened doors.

Zullie’s arms dropped to her sides, ending the spell, almost the moment that Agnete left. However, neither she nor Arkk moved while they could still hear those steps. A few minutes after that, Zullie looked back.

“Holy Light,” she said, voice a shaking whisper. “That wasn’t just an inquisitor. That was a purifier.”

“I have no idea what that means. She called herself Purifier Agnete. Or Vrox did, anyway.”

Zullie shook her head. “You’re the real deal, aren’t you? Forbidden magics and everything.”

“Uh…”

Zullie gripped his wrist and pulled him to the door. She glanced both ways, then started walking back the same way they had just come. “Good Light, I am even more excited.”

“Excited? You aren’t worried about the scary woman with glowing eyes?”

“Terrified. It is said that purifiers wield holy flame, capable of burning anything. Wood, rock, water, air. It doesn’t matter. They can even burn down the sky.”

“That sounds like an exaggeration. But in case it isn’t, let’s get as far away as we can.”

“Agreed. There should be a way out not far from here.”

That was the best news Arkk had heard in a long while. The sooner he was out of Cliff, the better.

He just had to hope the inquisitors wouldn’t follow him all the way back to Langleey.

 

 

 

“She didn’t even look at me. The moment she realized who I was, she turned away. Not once did she even pretend to glance back.”

“Did you expect her to start shouting and waving? Pointing out the elf on the rooftop about to attack the Duke?” Arkk said with a shake of his head. “I can’t believe you were about—”

Ilya cut him off. “I wasn’t.”

“What else were you grabbing your bow for?”

“I just… nothing,” she said through her teeth. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not unless we’re talking about how to get into one of the Duke’s parties.”

“Could always put Ilya up for auction,” Dakka said as they walked along one of the fancier roads in the city.

“No, no,” Arkk said, shooting the orc a look. Then he turned a glare on Ilya, who looked to be considering the possibility. “Getting in is only part of the problem. We have to get back out too, with Alya. From what you said, how close she seemed to the duke, it doesn’t sound like she is likely to be sold off at an auction.”

“So,” Ilya said, looking to Arkk, “how do we do it?”

“Magic. Maybe… I’m a bit wary about those magical defenses you said the manor had. If those interfere with Vezta’s teleportation circles, we’ll have to find another route.” Arkk shrugged. “I’ll ask her when we return. We’ve confirmed that Alya is safe and isn’t being harmed. That means we have time to figure it out. No need to rush in there without a plan. In any case, what we’re doing now may or may not help. Not sure. I was planning on doing this anyway.” Arkk glanced around, then dropped his voice to a lower register. “Let’s avoid discussing Alya for now.”

“What are we doing?” Dakka asked, looking around with a frown. “I don’t know about you two, but several people we’ve passed have been staring. I’m not sure I’m welcome in this section of the city.”

Arkk had noticed the stares as well. They were far from the only ones out and about. In contrast to the area around the Primrose, people here had a much more obvious wealth and a pampered air to them. They were also, by and large, human. The number of demihumans they had passed in the last ten minutes of walking could be counted on one hand. It was… odd. The Duke had a whole manor filled with demihumans and beastmen, yet in the wider city, they were treated poorly.

It made Arkk wonder what the three of them looked like walking down the street. He and Ilya both had their fine clothes on, but she wasn’t bothering to hide her ears at the moment. Dakka, lacking fancy clothes from the fortress tailor servant, had her normal metal armor on with her shield attached to her back and her axe slung against her hip. Would they look like two well-to-do sorts walking around with an orc bodyguard or could the people they were passing simply tell that they weren’t as affluent as they were pretending to be?

Unconsciously, Arkk rubbed at the back of his neck.

Luckily, they were almost there. Arkk turned through a small black-metal archway to a building that looked like it could have been a fortress of its own. Not like Fortress Al-Mir, but something akin to the garrison in the city. Strong, thick walls, a heavy wooden door reinforced with iron, and a long path between the gate and the building where people might rain arrows down on intruders.

Today, Arkk wasn’t an intruder but an invited guest. Though, being invited still meant he was asked to stand around outside while the men in white tabards with black chevrons went to fetch their commander. Expecting Arkk to arrive, it didn’t take long for Hawkwood to step outside with a smile on his face. He took in both Ilya and Dakka without losing that smile, then stepped forward with a hand extended.

“Mister Arkk, glad you made it.”

“Hawkwood,” Arkk said, taking his hand. He then motioned to his left and right. “This is Ilya, my… second in command? And Dakka. She’s the… uh… field commander for the orcs I mentioned having in my employ,” he said, faltering with introducing their duties. It wasn’t something he had thought about until this moment, but just introducing them as Dakka and Ilya felt lacking.

“You really are new to this, aren’t you?” Hawkwood said with a hearty laugh. Though his smile remained in place, his tone turned far more serious as he continued speaking. “It does make me wonder how you secured their loyalty.”

Arkk hesitated, shifting uncomfortably. He had deliberately avoided mentioning Fortress Al-Mir and its powers during his earlier explanation of events.

Dakka, however, came to his rescue with a casual shrug. “Most of us were already displeased with the way things were going. Arkk offered an alternative that kept our heads from a chopping block along with the possibility for meaningful jobs.” She shrugged again then looked down to Arkk. “Though if you have us farming again, you only have yourself to blame for desertions.”

Hawkwood clapped his hands together a few times, laughing all the while. “No farm work today,” he said, giving Dakka a companionable thwack against her armbrace. “Might not find it much more exciting, mind, but it isn’t farming.”

“Where are you taking us?” Arkk asked.

“One of those jobs you were looking at the other day was for tracking down a missing daughter. Remember that? Still interested?”

“That’s… part of the reason for that is that I know a tracking ritual. But I’m not sure that I should use it on anyone I don’t want harmed. It has a… dangerous component to it.”

“Huh.” Hawkwood crossed his arms.

“Sorry, I didn’t know—”

“No matter. The appointment has already been made. We’re meeting with Viscount Wesley now. He is waiting inside.”

“We’re, excuse me, we’re meeting with a viscount?” Ilya asked, startled out of her morose thoughts, bringing her into the conversation for the first time since Hawkwood walked out. “Arkk,” she hissed, turning toward him.

“Nothing to worry about. Viscount Wesley is a serious man who takes his duties to the Duchy with the utmost decorum expected of a man in his station. However, since his daughter’s disappearance, he has been increasingly disturbed. Someone, anyone, offering even the hope that they are looking for his daughter will go a great way toward helping him from his depression.”

“You haven’t offered to help?” Arkk asked Hawkwood. He tried not to sound accusatory, but if the situation was as dire as it sounded, surely he could offer assistance.

The knight shook his head. “White Company isn’t exactly that kind of mercenary group. We’re under a direct charter from the Duke himself, effectively acting as a supplementary army to the guards of the realm. A single individual going missing, while tragic, is outside the purview of our contracted duties. To be more accurate, we cannot take on other contracts without the express permission of Duke Woldair.”

“I see…”

“But nothing is preventing me from introducing the Viscount to an up-and-coming mercenary group like yours. Come along,” he said, turning back to the White Company headquarters. Right before he reached the door, he paused and looked back. “You never mentioned a name for your group. I presume you are not registered with the realm—I can help backdate that if you wish—but having a name is important. It grants legitimacy and helps to spread reputation among anyone interested in the services of mercenaries.”

Arkk hadn’t spent any more time considering what to call his group than he had what to call Ilya and Dakka. His first thought was of Fortress Al-Mir. He couldn’t call them Fortress Al-Mir, but perhaps Al-Mir? It sounded like it needed something more. From his earlier meeting with Hawkwood, he had heard of a few other mercenary groups. White Company, of course, and then there was the Veridian Guard, a smaller group that specialized in taking down nefarious spellcasters, the Flying Dragons, a group of beastmen—none of whom were dragons or even dragonkin according to Hawkwood—that primarily served as bodyguards to wealthy individuals who could afford their unique skills, and the Grand Company, soldiers leftover from the War of Kings who sold their services to the highest bidder. They all had two words in their names.

“Company Al-Mir?” Arkk wasn’t sure that felt right, but put on the spot like this?

“Al-Mir?” Hawkwood asked.

“It has meaning to us,” Arkk said, not wanting to divulge anything more about the fortress. Perhaps he shouldn’t have even mentioned the name.

Not that it looked like Hawkwood noticed. With a shrug and a quirk of his head, he opened the door and led the group through a short hallway before they arrived at a small conference room. It was a surprisingly grandiose affair. Thick, cushioned furniture, large portraits over the mantle above a fireplace, a small table set out with colored confections that Arkk had never seen before, and the man himself.

Viscount Wesley was every bit as opulent as Arkk would expect from a viscount. Arkk didn’t know exactly what viscounts did, but that they had a title at all meant they were people of importance. The man wore a slick black suit with red accents, far nicer than Arkk’s attire, and had perfectly styled white hair slicked back over his head. With gloved hands, he lifted an ornate teacup to his mouth and started to take a sip. He paused as soon as he noticed the door opening.

As Arkk entered, with Ilya and Dakka behind him, he noted Wesley’s nose wrinkle as if a foul stench had followed them into the room. Casting his gaze on the teacup, which received an undeserved look of disgust, he set the cup down on the table and placed his hands on the knee of his crossed legs.

“Viscount Wesley,” Hawkwood said, striding into the room with perfect confidence. He offered a slight bow then gestured back. “May I present Mister Arkk, Ilya, and Dakka of Company Al-Mir.”

Arkk ducked his head at his introduction, as did Ilya. Dakka didn’t. The Viscount simply sat still for a long moment before he nodded his head.

“Charmed,” he said, the word coming out in a slow drawl where he never quite parted his teeth.

“Good afternoon, Viscount,” Arkk said with a slightly more respectful bow. It felt gross doing so. Unnatural. Made all the worse by the fact that this certainly did not look like a man fearing for his lost daughter. “I understand you had a daughter go missing?”

“Missing?” Viscount Wesley ground his teeth together, clenching one of his hands into a fist. “She was kidnapped!”

“Kidnapped?” “Kidnapped?”

Arkk and Hawkwood spoke at the same time, glancing at each other immediately after. Deferring to his experience in mercenary endeavors, Arkk waited for him to speak first.

“The notice posted on the garrison said—”

“I know what it says. The—” Wesley’s eyes flicked to Ilya then back to Hawkwood. “—person taking my statement did not comprehend what I was saying. Gretchen is not so clumsy as to fail to find her way back home, nor would she simply abandon her comfortable life in the manor. The girl was kidnapped. Stolen.”

“Do you have suspects or leads? Any news of ransoms or…” Hawkwood curled his lip in disgust. “Or marriages?”

“No. No to all three questions,” Wesley said. He pressed his thumb and middle finger to either side of his eyebrows, shading his eyes as he sighed. “It has been eight days. I have not seen hide nor hair of Gretchen or her abductors. I commissioned the Jarman Guild with seeking her out, but I’ve not heard from them either. I know not whether they perished or simply took my down payment and fled.”

Arkk made a note to ask Hawkwood about this Jarman Guild later on. Hawkwood would know if they were reputable or if they were the kinds of people to take advantage of a viscount.

“We won’t require any kind of down payment, Sir,” Arkk said, taking over during the moment of silence.

“No down payment?” Wesley asked, lowering his hand to show off slightly watery eyes. He was at least a little broken up about his daughter being gone. “It offends me that you think I need charity.”

Arkk mentally retracted his assumption that the man was broken up. “You’ll pay in full when you have your daughter back,” Arkk said, voice firm. “Until then, why not start with a description of your daughter?”

Wesley narrowed his eyes. After a brief glance to Hawkwood, who nodded his head, the Viscount sighed. “Dark skin, dark eyes… face similar to my own without the beard. Her hair is white as well, though a bit curly. The color runs in the family. The curls came from her mother.” The man took a deep, slightly trembly breath, then added, “She has a fondness for the color green. I believe she was wearing green the night she was taken. More went missing along with her. A silver broach, in particular, with a large emerald embedded in the front.”

Appreciating Hawkwood correcting his lack of foresight by handing over a paper and inkwell, Arkk scribbled down everything Wesley said. He almost asked the Viscount if he knew where his daughter might be, but stopped himself at the last moment. While he thought the intended meaning would be obvious, the Viscount’s temperament was already volatile. It wouldn’t surprise Arkk to hear him grouse about pedantry.

Instead, Arkk asked, “Do you have any starting places for where a search might commence?”

“Three days after she was gone, when I realized she was missing, I sought a spellcaster from the academy. This isn’t the first time Gretchen has been kidnapped. Previously, the spellcasters were able to help locate her through arcane means, but this time it failed. It seems as if she traveled too far away.”

“They tried a tracking ritual?” Arkk asked with a wince. Hawkwood shot him a sympathetic look.

“I am no spellcaster, nor do I care to be one, Mister Arkk. I don’t know what they did, only what the results were.”

Arkk sighed. Scratch one plan before it could even start. At least he didn’t have to begin the awkward task of asking the man for a piece of his missing daughter.

“The only real clue I have is what the Jarman Guild reported to me before they stopped sending missives. Someone matching the description of my daughter was spotted in some backwater called Darkwood.”

“Darkwood?” Arkk asked, frowning. The name sounded familiar. There was only one place he would have heard the name before and that was from people passing through Langleey. Mercenaries and bounty hunters.

“A burg to the east,” Hawkwood said. “Not a very reputable place. It exports rare wood but always has some necromancer or sorcerer with delusions of grandeur trying to make trouble in the woods.”

Arkk nodded his head as he wrote the name down on the piece of paper. “Any other information you might think pertinent?”

The Viscount stared a long moment before standing. “Mister Hawkwood. Thank you for the tea. It was… passible.” With that, he strode right past Arkk, Ilya, and Dakka without looking at any of them and left the room.

Arkk drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. He looked away from the closed door, meeting Ilya’s eyes. He could easily see the exasperation in her gaze, the same exasperation he felt. Looking back to Hawkwood, finding the man smiling as if nothing about that confrontation had bothered him, Arkk tried to think of something diplomatically polite to say.

“If that man is upset about losing his daughter, I’ll eat my axe,” Dakka said before Arkk could speak.

Hawkwood laughed, but it seemed more forced than his earlier displays of humor. “It isn’t the first time Gretchen has, pardon me for saying, run away. There have been three instances in the past, all of which he claimed were abductions, one of which seemed to be an abduction. Whatever the case is this time, he is at least somewhat numb to the frequent occurrences.

“Rest assured, to someone who knows him, he is acting unusual. Worried and frightened in his own way.”

Arkk nodded, deciding to avoid asking what the man was worried about. Instead, he took the top sheet of paper, left the rest on the table, then stood. “Well, whatever his feelings are, his daughter is missing. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do anything about it, but we can certainly try.”

 

 

Arkk sat on a bench outside the recovery ward of Cliff’s academy. He had run out to get help the moment the woman—Zullie, he had discovered—collapsed. A few students and instructors had come, picked her up, and carried her off to the recovery ward. He should have left while they were busy and not paying attention to him, but two things were keeping him at the academy.

First, he hadn’t accomplished anything he had come here to do. All he had learned was one spell that he couldn’t remember after having heard its long incantation only once. Secondly, well, he felt guilty. That woman had collapsed after having tried to cast his spell. He had no idea why. None of what Vezta instilled in his mind with the [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE] gave him any clue as to what had happened to Zullie.

Still, he should have left. He could have come back in the morning. They were planning on spending three days in Cliff, plenty of time to visit again and both look into the matter of books and check up on Zullie.

He should have left.

He knew he should have left the moment he spotted a familiar face walking down the academy corridor. Arkk should only know two other faces in the entire city and this was neither.

The man’s head practically scraped the ceiling of the corridors. His posture, head slightly ahead of the rest of his body and arms straight at his side without swinging as he moved, triggered all kinds of unease in Arkk. The worst was his smile. It looked calm and serene, but the stiffness and the way his lips were parted just enough to see his upper teeth didn’t help Arkk’s disquiet.

He walked right past Arkk, reaching for the door handle with his long arms, but paused the moment he touched the metal. With a faint sniff, he turned his head.

There was a slight, awkward pause as recognition lit up behind those thin round glasses. “Ah. Mister Arkk,” he said in the same tone someone might use when greeting an old friend.

Arkk held in a sigh. “Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox. Right?”

“You remembered.”

“Well, you made an impression, I guess.”

His smile deepened without reaching his eyes for a bare instant before he returned to a placid expression. “Fancy encountering you here. Did you recall something you wished to tell us?”

“No, I…” Arkk trailed off as the Master Inquisitor stepped closer, utterly dwarfing him as he remained in his seat. “I remembered what you said about learning at a magical academy and decided to come to take a look for myself.”

“Enjoying yourself so far?”

“I didn’t really get a chance to look around before the first person I tried to talk to collapsed,” Arkk said with a glance at the closed door.

“I heard an old colleague of mine suffered some sort of magical malady,” Vrox said, looking toward the door. “Now that I’ve found you here, many questions come to mind.”

“As much as I would love to answer them,” Arkk started, sliding to the side on the bench so he could stand without bumping into Vrox. “I was only sticking around to make sure Zullie was alright, but if someone as qualified as you is here—”

“Stay,” Vrox said, taking a step to the side to keep in front of Arkk. “Tell me what you did.”

“Why do you think I did anything?”

“Because you are here,” Vrox said, smile slipping entirely. “And, Mister Arkk, I do not trust you. I do not believe a word you say. From the moment we met, you have done nothing but lie to me.”

“But I didn’t—”

“Another lie.”

Arkk pressed his lips together, glaring. “Then I suppose there is no point in telling you anything, is there? If you aren’t going to believe a word I say, why waste my breath?”

Darius Vrox stared, then smiled his stiff, open-mouthed grin once again. “Well, shall we see how our unfortunate professor is handling herself?” he asked, stepping to the door. Without even waiting for Arkk’s response, he turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Arkk glanced down the corridor. This was his chance to escape. Yet, if he ran away now, he was sure that Vrox would see that as a sign of further guilt. Arkk still wasn’t sure exactly what the inquisitors wanted, but Olatt’an, Vezta, and Ilya all said that having them after him would be irritating at best, but more likely deadly.

Not to mention, he did want to know if Zullie was alright.

With a sigh, feeling again like he should just leave, Arkk followed Vrox into the recovery ward.

Cliff Academy Recovery Ward was a fairly subdued affair. There was a large desk with a larger shelf behind it. Dozens of stoppered glass bottles occupied the spaces, each a different size, shape, and with different colored liquids inside. Between the shelf and the desk, a woman sat wearing white robes almost identical to those worn by Abbess Keena in Langleey. Her clothes covered her entire body except for her face and her hands.

Beyond the desk, several beds were pushed up against the wall. Three of the five were unoccupied. One had a younger man with bloodied bandages wrapped around one arm. Zullie was in the other, asleep and unharmed save for the large bruise that had spread across her chin and cheek on one side of her face.

Another man stood over her bed. He wore a long white cassock with a little black square at the center of his collar. There was no doubt that this man was a member of the Abbey of the Light; the golden thread woven into his cassock formed the same symbols that adorned Abbess Keena’s habit and the church buildings.

“Priest,” Vrox said, stepping up to the foot of the bed.

“Who—” The priest looked up from Zullie. His eyes widened to their maximum and he took a hesitant step back. “M-Ma—”

“Darius Vrox, at your service.”

“Master Inquisitor!”

“Please,” Vrox said with his utterly insincere smile, “call me Darius.” His eyes shifted down to Zullie and his smile disappeared. “What happened to the female?”

“Your Eminence!” the priest shouted, back stiffening. “This is hardly a matter that warrants your attention.”

“I will be the judge of that.”

“Of course, Sir.” The priest glanced downward, frowning at the woman on the bed. “It’s just Zullie. One of our premier spell researchers. Except, she doesn’t know when to stop. She has overloaded her magical channels. Again. A bit of rest and she’ll be back on her feet.”

“This is a frequent occurrence?”

“Oh yes. This happens… once a month at the very least.”

“Once a month?” Arkk said. “It isn’t anything serious?”

The priest jolted, glancing at Arkk as if it were the first time he noticed that anyone else was in the room. With a slight glance to Vrox, who didn’t move in the slightest, the priest nodded his head. “I wouldn’t say it isn’t serious, but it is hardly unusual for Zullie. You’re the one who brought her here? I didn’t realize you were waiting around.”

Arkk sighed. “I should have left. I was worried for nothing.”

Scratching the back of his head, the priest offered a half-hearted shrug. Looking back to the inquisitor, he stiffened and cleared his throat. “I offered a prayer of rejuvenation as well as administered a phial of replenishment. There is no need to concern yourself, Sir.”

“On the contrary, I find myself quite concerned when one of our esteemed oracles begins a Prognosis stating that the stars have begun aligning within Cliff Magical Academy.”

“Inside?” Arkk said, frowning. He grimaced at having accidentally drawn the inquisitor’s attention but pressed his lips together and continued when no one said anything to him. “Don’t you mean above? How are stars aligning inside a mountain?”

Vrox fixed Arkk with a long look. Long enough that Arkk felt himself fidgeting under the taller man’s gaze. “Where is the horror from beyond the stars, Mister Arkk?”

“This again,” Arkk mumbled with a sigh. “I haven’t even seen that monster in… over a week at least,” he said, once again implying one thing without lying. Thinking back to what Vezta had said, he asked, “What does that even mean, beyond the stars?”

“Mister Arkk, I understand that you are a lowly countryside creature ignorant of the ways of the world and, I’m sure, most everything save for farming and what few scraps of magic you might have gleaned from the pages of passers-by.”

Arkk waited for the ‘but’ to follow that extended insult.

It never came.

“The Inquisition of the Light exists to protect the world and all its inhabitants from things beyond,” Vrox continued. “A mine infested by gorgon or a necromancer commanding an army of thousands is mere child’s play compared to what I have personally seen. The things we deal with threaten the very concept of life; the average being we hunt down is unimaginable to the majority of humans. And yet, I believe you, in all your ignorance, would imagine one such being quite well.”

“If you’re talking about Vezta,” Arkk said with a scowl, “then I told you in Langleey. She showed up and helped defend the village. So obviously I can imagine her. But we almost got overwhelmed by a hundred goblins. I would be far more scared of a necromancer with an army. Besides, she helped the village. Saved us, even. An enemy of life itself or whatever wouldn’t have done that. You’re clearly barking up the wrong tree.”

Vrox took a deep breath, staring. His smile snapped back into place. “Possible,” he said, turning away from the bed. “But unlikely given the description we received. And now, I find you at the site of the oracle’s Prognosis. There is a limit to coincidence, Mister Arkk.” He dipped his head. “Please inform any member of the Abbey of the Light should you recall anything of interest regarding your monster. We may be mistaken. Finding the creature and examining it would put our worries to rest. Good day, Mister Arkk.”

Arkk watched the tall man duck through the doorway and turn down the hall.

Now, he decided not to leave. Not yet, anyway. Let the inquisitor get far away before he followed. The last thing Arkk wanted to do was carry on their conversation on the way out. Or worse, walk along in awkward silence. Instead, Arkk turned back to Zullie and the priest.

The priest was breathing hard, half collapsed onto the adjacent bed. His face was flushed and he kept patting his chest.

“Are you alright?” Arkk asked, not wanting to be responsible for a second person fainting in his presence today.

“Oh dear me. I’m…” He pressed his lips together, breathing out. One more breath in and he seemed to calm himself down. “Not every day you run into an inquisitor, is it? Not to speak ill of His Eminence, but I am glad he is gone. Ill omens follow in their wake. I hope he doesn’t return.”

“Ill omens?”

“As he said, inquisitors hunt dangerous creatures and forbidden magics. If an inquisitor is snooping about, one of those things is certainly present.” The priest glanced down at Zullie. “I hope you haven’t been delving into dangerous research. Again,” he mumbled under his breath. “Sorry. Just a bit shook is all. You mentioned that you were from Langleey?”

“You’ve heard of it?” Arkk asked, surprised. He had been telling people he came from Smilesville after the first few people had no idea where Langleey was.

“The abbess in charge is still Keena, correct?” At Arkk’s nod, he smiled. “Keena and I were initiates and, later, acolytes at the same time. Tell her Heller says hello. I haven’t seen her in years.”

“Sure, I’m sure she’d be happy—”

Zullie’s eyes snapped open as she gasped in her bed. The gasp turned into a rickety cough that ended with her leaning over the side of the bed. Arkk thought she was going to be sick for a moment, but she ended up only spitting out a small wad of blood onto the floor.

“Zullie! Please,” Heller said, pinching his nose. “I’ve told you time and time again and now you’re dirtying my ward—”

“Ugh, here again,” Zullie groaned, smacking herself in the face. “Glasses. Where are my glasses, old man?”

“I am not old.”

“You’re twice my age, almost three times,” Zullie said. She patted her hands around the bedside table until her fingers found the square rims of her glasses. She tried to put them on, only to hiss as she jabbed herself right in her bruise. With a finger, she tenderly prodded at it, feeling for the edges of the injury.

“I applied some poultice. You’ll probably be tender for a good week.”

“Great.” Zullie carefully slid the glasses onto her face, taking special care not to bump her cheek. “How long…” She trailed off as she looked around the room. “You!”

“Sorry,” Arkk said with a grimace. “I didn’t know—”

“How did you do that?”

“Uh…”

Against the protests of the priest, Zullie jumped out of her bed, lunging for Arkk. He started to back up, moving out of reach of her grab, only to watch her legs fail her. Arkk stepped forward quickly, managing to catch her before she could crash to the floor again.

“You need rest, Zullie,” Heller said, moving around the bed to help.

“I don’t need rest.” She fought him off, grabbing hold of Arkk by the shoulders and pulling herself far too close for comfort.

What was it with these people and their lack of personal boundaries?

“You!” Zullie said again. “How? I poured everything I had into that and couldn’t manage a spark!”

Arkk shrugged. “You were talking about elements and gestures? Maybe you got the wrong ones.”

“No. Something should have happened.”

“You collapsed.”

She glared.

“Uh… there was a slight flash of light? Nothing too bright. It might have been my imagination, honestly.”

Releasing him, Zullie pinched her chin between her thumb and forefinger. “So, it did work,” she mumbled to herself. “But…”

As the magical researcher began mumbling to herself about various magical theories that Arkk couldn’t make heads or tails of, he started backing away. Slowly at first, but once he got to the door, he picked up his pace. He really should have left a long time ago. There would surely be others around who could point him to a bookstore. Maybe even Hawkwood. Surely a mercenary company made use of spellcasters in their ranks.

Arkk didn’t make it very far before he heard the woman running up from behind. She had barely been able to stand a moment ago and now she was running? Arkk had to give her points for determination if nothing else.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Zullie shouted as she closed the distance.

“Thought you needed your rest,” Arkk said with a wan smile as he turned around.

“What I need is to figure out how you did that spell. Show me again.”

Arkk sighed. “Before you go pass out again, would you mind telling me where I can pick up some books on magic? Both rituals and incantations, please.”

“You want books after showing me that? If I knew where to find a book that could teach me to cast a spell in two words, you think I’d be in this dump? I would be living large as the King’s court sorcerer!”

“Well, I would still like some books. And I have no idea how to teach you that spell. The way I learned it…” Arkk pressed his lips together. “It was unorthodox, to say the least. And some people might be after the person who taught me.”

“The inquisitor?” Zullie asked, violet eyes piercing through her glasses. “I was half-awake throughout all that. Caught part of it, I think.” She stepped back, crossing her arms with a thoughtful expression on her face. “Forbidden magic, huh? Inquisitors don’t roll out of bed for a soul-splitting lich and you’ve got them in a tizzy over a little lightning bolt?”

“I think they’re after the person who taught it,” Arkk repeated.

“Only because they don’t know about the spell. Did you ever demonstrate it for them?”

“No.”

“Don’t. I’ll teach you a proper spell for a lightning bolt if they ever show up asking to know.”

Arkk raised his eyebrows. “You’ll help me? Even if I’ve got these inquisitors buzzing over my shoulder?”

Zullie stared at him, eyes locked on his. “There is nothing I value more than the pursuit of magical advancement. A two-word lightning spell of that caliber… To be honest, it puts every accomplishment under my name to shame.”

“Sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s wonderful. Fascinating. So, you teach me your spell or bring me to your tutor and I teach you how to better hide from the inquisitors. They are non-too-pleased with me, to be honest. I have experience dealing with them. How does that sound?”

“Well, I…” Arkk trailed off, frowning. “Well, I need to be careful making transactional agreements like that. You might end up getting hired by accident.”

“Hired?”

Arkk shook his head, waving his hand dismissively. He was sure she would be interested in that as well given that the [HEART] was some ancient magical artifact. With her as excited as she was about the lightning spell, he didn’t want to alarm—or excite—her any further.

“My companions and I were only going to be in the city for another few days before we return home. We are planning on coming back sometime soon, but I don’t know about bringing Vezta—”

“How many more days?”

“Two or three.”

“I’ll have my things packed and ready.”

Arkk stared. “Excuse me?”

“I can pay my way for food and sleeping accommodations. Transit too, if necessary.”

“You’re coming with us?”

“Yes,” Zullie said, straight-faced and entirely serious. “Is that a problem?”

“I guess not.” He would double-check with Ilya and Dakka, but he doubted they would mind. And if she was going to help him with the inquisitors, then keeping her happy would be for the best. “I don’t know exactly when we’re going to leave. Stop by the Primrose stayover tomorrow night and we’ll have a better idea.”

“Primrose,” she said, nose wrinkling.

“Is that a problem?”

“No, no. I suppose not.” Nodding to herself, she straightened her back. Arms still crossed, she angled one upward and gestured vaguely with her fingers. “I will be there. Tomorrow evening, before sunset.”

“Great. I’ll let the others know,” Arkk said, backing away once again.

For a long few moments, he thought she might chase after him, but she didn’t. Zullie remained right where she was, tapping her finger against her chin while muttering to herself. Satisfied that he wasn’t about to be tackled, Arkk began the long process of figuring out where to find the exit to the maze of interconnected corridors.

It did remind him of Fortress Al-Mir in that regard, though he had never found himself lost back home. The fortress projected a map into his mind and he could teleport anywhere at will within. The same was not true here.

Eventually, he found someone else wandering the halls who was happy to show him the way out.

When he saw the night sky hanging overhead, Arkk winced.

“The others are going to kill me,” he mumbled.

 

 

 

Dakka leaned back in her chair, taking a long drink from the hardest ale served in whatever shithole she found herself in. She tried to project an air of casual disregard as she carefully watched the faces around her.

The lizardman with his distinctly inhuman facial features was the hardest to read. His tongue flicked out of his face, tasting the air as his beady yellow eyes looked over his opponents. In contrast, the little fairy girl couldn’t be any more open as she sighed over and over again at the pasteboard cards in her hand. Dakka kept thinking that it was an act, but the fairy lost hand after hand.

The other two, a dark elf with unnaturally gray skin—unnaturally for most other species anyway—and a fellow orc, were much easier to read. Right now, she was reading that the orc didn’t like her all that much. Possibly because of her size, probably because of the large stack of silver she had in front of her that used to be in front of him.

Dakka tossed half a dozen silvers across the table, raising the stakes to the point where the fairy let out a long groan as she threw her cards away. It would have been easy to bait the fairy with a lower bet, but at this point, Dakka was just trying to spare the poor thing from losing any more coin.

The orc across from her, on the other hand… When it looked like he was about to fold as well, Dakka rolled her eyes with an exaggerated scoff. With an angry grunt, the orc tossed in the remainder of his silvers. Too easy. The dark elf folded while the lizardman tossed in a few of his rather sizable pile of coins.

Dakka spread her cards on the table. A fairly bad hand, all things considered. The orc let out a guffaw, throwing his cards next to hers while reaching for the pile of silver, only for the lizardman to lash out with a hasty claw.

“Not sso fasst,” the lizardman said, carefully setting his cards down.

A grin spread across Dakka’s face. A grin that only widened once the orc turned a furious expression her way. She might have lost the hand, but reading the lizardman was a victory all on its own. Mostly because it took away the orc’s victory.

She didn’t care about the money the lizardman was sliding over to his side. It wasn’t like it was her money. She just cared that the orc was upset. He pissed her off. Now that his pile was completely gone, Dakka stood, dumped the remainder of her coins into her pouch, and waved.

“Thanks for the games, boys. Was a… productive afternoon.” After meeting everyone’s eyes, lingering on the orc’s just a moment longer than everyone else, Dakka turned and left the fine establishment.

She headed down the road, moving alongside the harbor, though a street removed from the seaside, and continued along until she found what she was looking for. A narrow, deserted wynd between two of the rundown wooden buildings of this district. Dakka took the backstreet, stopped halfway through it, and leaned up against the wall.

It didn’t take long before a certain, silverless orc rounded the corner. He paused, startled at her simply waiting there, but quickly balled his hands into fists.

“Tell you what,” Dakka said as he approached. “I have a few questions I want answers to. In exchange, I’ll hand over… let’s say ten of your hard-earned silvers.”

“Scared without your lizard friend here?” he spat. “He won’t be coming to your rescue this time. My boys are watching him.”

Dakka laughed. She had never met that lizardman before. It might have looked like they were conspiring together to ruin this orc. “Should have brought your boys to back you up. Honestly thought there would be at least three of you.”

“Don’t need anyone to teach a runt like you a lesson.”

Dakka’s eye twitched as she ducked his punch. He was wide and obvious. The orc was two heads taller than she was, around the upper end for male orcs. But he wasn’t a fighter. Not a proper fighter, in any case. Not a raider.

Sidestepping another punch, Dakka rammed her fist into his stomach. His knuckles slammed into the side of her head, snapping her neck to the side, but she rolled with it, shimmying around a haymaker. Grabbing hold of his shirt and outstretched arm, Dakka stepped forward, wrapping a leg behind his leg. With it, she lifted him up enough to slam his back down onto the hard flagstone ground.

Dakka kicked her boot into the side of his head once and his shoulders twice as he tried to use the wall to pull himself back up. Bringing her fists together, she hammered down on his head, knocking him down once again.

Grabbing her axe in one hand, Dakka swung straight for his neck. It bit into the wooden wall behind him, sending splinters flying past his face as it stopped just a hair from the side of his green skin.

The orc panted, wide-eyed and sweating. His gaze was off in the corners of his eyes, looking at the edge of the blade without turning his head, as if afraid that even a small movement would have it slice into him.

Dakka grinned. Rearing back, she spat a wad of blood off to the side. “That kind of talk is why you’re silverless,” she said with a grin. Blood was probably staining her teeth. She could feel a little warmth on the side of her head where he had hit her. She might even be bleeding there as well. Dakka expected it to add to the intimidation factor. “Now you’re going to answer my questions. Understand?”

He didn’t answer, too focused on gripping the side of his head where Dakka had kicked him.

“Now,” Dakka said, leaning down. “Tell me everything you know about the Duke and his elf.”

Ilya did not meander through the streets, gawking at the compact buildings, stone structures, the fancy fountain in the middle of a stone plaza, or even the hundreds upon hundreds of people that somehow both fit and lived in such a relatively small space. Exploring wasn’t exactly the word she would use for what she was doing despite what she told Arkk. While she didn’t know exactly where she was going, Ilya moved with purpose.

She had never been this close before.

In the past, as a child, Ilya had dreamed of coming to this city and valiantly rescuing her mother from the Duke. It had been nothing more than that, dreams. Leaving her home alone or even with Arkk on some crusade had always sounded like madness. Now they were here. Ilya, Arkk, and a completely random and unrelated orc. It still sounded like madness that they were going to do anything, and yet, things had changed.

Ilya didn’t know where to go, but she knew her destination. She figured that finding it would be easy. All she had to do was follow the wealth. From the district where the majority of the demihumans and beastmen lived to properly maintained wooden buildings and on to stone buildings. When Ilya started to see actual glass in the windows of the surrounding buildings, she knew she was headed in the right direction.

Much to Ilya’s irritation, she found herself stopped before she could reach what she suspected was her destination.

At first, Ilya thought it was a canal. Water filled a relatively wide trough of stone bricks at the end of the street she had been walking on. Walking alongside it, Ilya quickly discovered that it was not just a canal, but a moat. The moat didn’t fully encircle the land beyond but only because part of that land stuck out into the ocean. On the opposite side of the moat was a walled land. Maybe even as large as Langleey Village—the main area including the Baron’s manor, church, and workshops anyway, not the full farmland. There were only two ways across, aside from swimming, and both had guards positioned in front of closed gates.

Walking around for a few more minutes, Ilya came across just what she needed. A three-story building, tall enough to see well over the wall on the other side of the moat. It was right up against the mountainside, which provided the perfect cover as Ilya scaled the wall, finding handholds and footholds in the wide grooves of the stonemasonry.

Ilya pulled herself onto the slanted rooftop made of shale shingles. She took care not to go over the peak, keeping her body firmly on the side that faced away from the moat and walls.

That was it. That had to be it. It looked idyllic. A wide open and frankly beautiful vineyard sat beyond the walls, merged with some kind of park-like garden. It stretched on, wrapping around a truly massive, opulent structure in the center of it all. A veritable castle.

The Duke’s manor. Though, calling it a manor implied that it was somehow on the same level as Baron Langleey’s manor and it absolutely was not. Power and prestige permeated every aspect of the construction. The grounds covered the majority of the promontory, jutting out into the sea. The fine building at the center of it all was covered in smooth white stone, not at all like the whitewashed church back in Langleey, where the washing had to be reapplied every few years to keep it gleaming. Here, the stone itself was white. An arching dome made of long panels of clear glass occupied a plot of land about as large as the Langleey church while a high tower at the other end of the keep overlooked the ocean.

Between the moat, the wall, and the wide vineyard, it was as if the Duke were keeping an arm’s length from the unwashed masses of the city he presided over.

People were wandering the grounds. A few guards patrolled the walls and Ilya’s sharp eyes spotted a few more posted in the tall tower but the people on the grounds and in the gardens appeared to be regular people. Gardeners tended to the vineyard.

Others meandered about as well, though not workers. Most were women, dressed in fine robes and gowns. As far as Ilya could tell, they were simply wandering about, enjoying the gardens and the company of each other. Interestingly enough, they weren’t all human.

Arkk had mentioned in the past, hearing tales from the various travelers to the village with whom he loved to talk, that demihumans weren’t often treated well within the Duchy. Ilya hadn’t necessarily believed it. Certainly, no one in Langleey had treated her poorly. Then again, elves supposedly got off lightly compared to some of the more monstrous species. Cliff was evidence enough for her. The way all the demihumans had been shoved off into one little corner of the city, a particularly poor and unkempt corner at that, spoke volumes.

Yet, demihumans were wandering the grounds. They wore fine clothes, no less, not the clothes of serfs or workers. Ilya spotted a dark elf—easily identifiable by her red eyes and long yet more rounded ears—two harpies, a dryad that looked like a walking tangle of bark and vines, a pair of werecats, an orc that, based on the heights of those around it, was even smaller than Dakka, and one other monster that Ilya couldn’t decide if it was a water elemental or a particularly well-formed slime. Of course, there were elves as well. The vast majority of the women wandering the grounds were elves.

There were almost no humans aside from the guards.

Ilya watched from the roof for hours, eyes moving from elf to elf, trying to spot anything familiar on their faces. The people in the bailey meandered about, wandering into the manor and back out. Was that the same orc as before? A werehound joined the small group of beastmen, excitedly running around and annoying the werecats at the same time.

What were all these women doing, just lounging around? Ilya wasn’t sure that she understood. Maybe she just didn’t want to understand, not wanting to think of what it might mean for her mother. If her mother was even there.

Ilya didn’t want to think about what it might mean if her mother wasn’t there either.

The sun started to set before Ilya began to stir. She had been watching the manor grounds all day. It was well past time to meet up with Arkk and Dakka. If she delayed much longer, they would probably start panicking.

Just before she could begin climbing down from the roof, however, she heard a loud squawk from the manor grounds.

One of the harpies took off in a sprint, wings flapping. Kicking off the ground with her powerful legs, the harpy launched into the air, much to the alarm of the guards on the walls. Crossbow bolts started flying through the air. While the guards were targeting the harpy in the air, the bolts came down everywhere, forcing everyone on the ground to rush for cover in the safety of the manor.

The harpy did not get very far. It wasn’t even the crossbows that got her. The harpy banked under a volley of bolts, then, as the guards were cranking back their crossbows for another shot, the harpy headed straight over the walls.

A lattice of thin blue lines encapsulated the entire manor, bailey and all. A pair of robe-wearing guards stood in the tall tower at the center of the compound, crouched around a glowing light. Ilya couldn’t see what was glowing from her angle, but she had seen that same light before when Arkk tried to do rituals. The manor had magical protections.

After running into the lattice, the harpy seemed to pass out in mid-air. Her wings, still spread wide, caught the air but the harpy made no effort to stop her tight spiral as she crashed into the ground behind the wall. Ilya winced, wondering if the harpy had survived. She could only barely see the bird-woman, but what she could see wasn’t moving.

Ilya’s eyes were drawn up to the manor where people were once again running out. Guards from the walls made it to the harpy first, but Ilya wasn’t paying attention to them anymore. How could she? Her eyes were locked on a tall, graceful elf striding across the bailey.

An elf with long, silver hair, silver eyes, and sharp ears.

Ilya sucked in a breath.

That was her. Her mother. Alya. She reached the harpy and started saying something to the guards. Even though she was practically yelling, Ilya’s sensitive ears heard nothing while she was focused on her mother’s face.

She looked… well. Healthy. Her skin was as flawless as Ilya remembered, with no sign of bruises or abuse. Her arms weren’t scrawny sticks of skin and bone. Although Ilya wasn’t listening to her words, she had a strong voice as she shouted at the guards. It… wasn’t what Ilya had been expecting. In all her nightmares, her mother had been chained up in a deep dungeon, shackled to the walls, and fed little more than barley water. In the better nightmares, Ilya and Arkk charged in with a sword and bow, chopping down guards as they worked to free her.

In her focus on her mother, Ilya completely missed someone else approaching the guards and the fallen harpy. It wasn’t until he grabbed Alya by the waist that Ilya took notice.

He was short, especially next to Alya, with large bulging eyes like those of a frog. Dressed in the finest clothes that Ilya had ever seen, he wore a velvety black and red lounge jacket with particularly bright red lapels. Every finger on both his hands was adorned with gold bands and colorful gemstones. A large blue and white striped shield emblem hung proudly off his chest, surrounded by filigree while a winged lion stood on its hind legs in the center.

Duke Levi Woldair.

It had to be him. Ilya had never seen the man before, but the moment she put her eyes on his slimy grin, she knew it had to be him.

Ilya’s hand moved to her back where her mother’s bow was locked in its clasps. He was right there. Right in front of her. Standing out in the open. From her elevated position, it would be too easy to end him right now.

Before she could fully unclasp her bow from her back, her movements made it scrape against the shale tiles of the roof. Ilya froze solid at the noise, not daring to move. Even though it had been a faint scrape, it sounded like thunder to her sharp ears.

The humans across the moat didn’t react in the slightest as they continued to speak to one another. Her mother, however, snapped her gaze up. She looked around for just a moment before her gaze landed on Ilya. Her eyes widened for a bare instant before narrowing into a thin glare. She kept her gaze on Ilya long enough to mouth a single word.

“Leave.”

As soon as she said that, she adopted a forced smile and leaned down, whispering something into the Duke’s ear. Whatever it was, the Duke let out a laugh and waved off his guards. One guard, who Ilya now realized had a loaded crossbow aimed at the harpy’s head, pulled back as two others moved to grab the harpy by the wings. They dragged her off toward the manor.

The Duke followed and Ilya’s mother fell in line just behind him, putting herself between Ilya and the Duke.

It was another hour, well after sunset, before Ilya dared to climb down from her perch. Neither the Duke nor her mother returned from the manor. Most of the others Ilya had seen over the day remained inside as well. Only the guards stayed out, returning to their posts around the walls and towers. After the excitement with the harpy, they remained on alert, but that slowly died down.

Ilya drifted through a haze as she made her way back to the Primrose. She couldn’t believe what she had seen.

Ilya clenched her teeth, fingers digging into the palms of her tightly clenched fists. Her mother was protecting the Duke? Why? And that glare… The first time she saw Ilya in fifteen years and she glared? Ilya couldn’t understand it. In all her worst nightmares, she had never seen that reaction. She had been prepared to find her mother battered and broken, used and abused in ways that Ilya didn’t even want to think about. And yet…

“There you are!”

Ilya blinked, realizing that she had made it back to the Primrose. Dakka sat at one of the tables, a half-burned cigar in one hand and a spread of pasteboard cards in the other. The orc dropped her cards on the table, face down, and scooped a rather large pile of coins into her pouch as she stood, much to the disappointed looks of those she was sharing a table with.

“You look like shit,” Dakka said, picking up an orc-sized flagon full of beer from the table and marching right over to Ilya. “Drink?”

Ilya stared at the orc for a moment. Alcohol wasn’t her favorite thing in the world, beer even less. Yet, right now… She reached out and took the tall mug. Tipping it back, she started drinking and didn’t stop until there was nothing left.

For some inane reason, people around her let out a laughing cheer when she finished.

“Damn,” Dakka said as Ilya shoved the empty mug back over. “Don’t know what happened to you, but I might have some good news to cheer you back up.”

“Good news?”

Dakka glanced around, dropped the flagon on the nearest table, then motioned toward the stairs up to the second floor. “Not here.”

“Right…”

Ilya followed after Dakka, feeling everything she just drank slosh around in her otherwise empty stomach. She hadn’t eaten anything since morning, having stayed up on that rooftop all day. About halfway up, she thought she might wind up sick, but managed to steady herself before continuing. It helped that Dakka clapped a hand to her back, steadying her.

“So,” Dakka said as they stepped into their room. “It turns out the Duke has a lot of monsters in his… collection.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

“Noticed?”

Ilya shook her head as she slumped onto the bed, motioning with her hand for Dakka to continue.

“Well, he has many elves,” Dakka said, sounding a little less certain of her supposed good news. “Word is that he treats them very well.”

“Oh.” Ilya might have been happy to hear that earlier, but now? Did the Duke treat them well enough that her own mother would trade her for his company? She felt nausea welling inside her at the thought.

Or maybe that was the alcohol.

“If that doesn’t cheer you up,” Dakka said, hesitating a moment as she watched Ilya. “The Duke holds monthly parties at his manor where he shows off his collection to all the important people in the city.”

Ilya blinked, looking up while slowly shaking her head. “Is that supposed to make me happy?”

“I thought that, with you and Arkk planning on pretending to be some important people, you might make it into his manor for one of these parties.”

It took a moment for the words to hit her, but when they did, Ilya sat up straight. She nodded her head, slowly at first, then faster and faster. “Yes. We could get in and I could ask…” Ilya trailed off, a lump forming in her throat.

“In addition to parties, I hear he auctions some of them off on occasion.”

“Auctions?” Ilya said, nose wrinkling.

“Disgusting, yeah. The Duchy officially has a bounty on any slavers. Apparently owning slaves isn’t against any decrees.” Dakka shrugged as if the notion didn’t bother her much. It was just the way things were. “With your goal, however…”

Ilya’s eyes widened. “You’re right. Right, we just need to,” Ilya said, standing, then she looked around. She squinted, the room was dark, but it was obvious that only she and Dakka were inside. “Where is Arkk?”

Dakka shrugged. “No idea. Haven’t seen him since this morning.”

“He was the one who insisted we be back before sunset.”

“I was back,” Dakka said, tone implying that she had been the only one to follow that particular plan.

“Oh no. I feel like he’s gotten himself into another mess…” Ilya said, staggering over to the window. “I hope he hasn’t made anything explode.”

“Or anyone.”

Ilya grimaced. Memories of the orc chieftain’s grim fate were too much for her, making her lean over the windowsill.

She ignored Dakka griping about the waste of good beer.

 

 

As it turned out, the garrison and the academy were fairly close to one another. Both were built into the mainland mountain that shadowed Cliff. Both even had similar architecture on the exterior, that being miniature keep-like structures that extended out from the sheer face of the mountain. The difference was that one kept a contingent of guards standing around its entrances.

Adjusting the odd jacket of his dark suit, Arkk stood in the middle of a small line. He had dressed up, deciding to make use of the fancier clothes that he had. Maybe it was because a lesser servant had been the tailor or maybe it was just the style of the suit, but he didn’t quite feel like it fit. The shoulders felt too tight and it rubbed against his neck.

“Name and business,” a guard behind a wire mesh window asked as Arkk stepped up.

Keeping his back straight and his expression as serious as he could manage, Arkk introduced himself. “Arkk. I’m here to inquire about mercenary work.”

The guard’s eyes looked up from a tablet of vellum and roved over Arkk. Unlike the previous times he had mentioned looking for mercenary work, the guard did not laugh or make any snide comments. He simply looked back to his vellum and nodded. “Are you making specific inquiries, posting work, or looking for work?”

“The latter, please.”

“Open bounties, recruitment notices, and other matters of interest for routiers are posted on the southern wall of the garrison, just to your left.”

“Oh. Thank you,” Arkk said, stepping out of line.

Following the guard’s directions, he found a large board up against the stone wall, shielded from the elements by a heavy awning overhead. Rows of paper, each stamped with an official-looking seal covered the board. There were a wide variety of jobs on the board. Some were mundane and offered low rewards, such as gathering certain herbs and roots from a forest or assisting villages that had a shortage of labor. Arkk dismissed those entirely for the moment; his orcs had already tried the latter option and he had no desire to further encourage a riot.

Others were a bit more interesting. A merchant wanted an armed escort for traveling between a few burgs that Arkk didn’t recognize. Another person wanted escorts to guard an expedition to some ancient temple. Someone had lost a daughter, as in physically could not find her, and was wanting to hire trackers and others who specialized in finding people. For a moment, that one sounded like a job he could do right now if the daughter had left behind hair or something else he could use, but the longer he thought about it, the more an unpleasant feeling swam through his gut.

He forced himself to stop thinking about the tracking spell before he threw up.

The two most rewarding jobs were by far the most interesting. The first was a request to gather samples of blighted fungus for study. Arkk still didn’t know what that was, though maybe it was time to start asking around. Judging by the amount offered for the job, it must have been dangerous stuff. The other job, only slightly more rewarding, was a request to clear out a mine that had been overrun with gorgon.

Arkk didn’t know exactly what a gorgon was. The name sounded familiar. Thinking back, he thought he heard about it from some mercenaries in his childhood. One of the groups that passed through Langleey with stories to tell. Nothing specific jumped out at him from those memories, however. He reached out, lifting the paper in the hopes of finding more details underneath, but before he could, a rough hand landed on his shoulder.

“Wouldn’t pick that one, mate.”

Jolting, not having been paying attention to those around him, Arkk turned to find a man with a flat face and a pointed nose giving him a serious look.

“Nasty beasts, gorgons. Their coils can crush steel, their venom melts flesh from bone, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they’re known to turn men to stone. Wouldn’t take that job if it were offering ten times the amount.”

“Men to stone?” Arkk said. That… sounded familiar. The mercenary group he had been thinking of might have abandoned the job in fear of two gorgon. “What about women?”

After staring at him for a moment, the man let out a loud laugh and clapped Arkk on the shoulder. “Good one,” he said at the end of his laugh. Taking his hand from Arkk’s shoulder, he held it out. “Name’s Hawkwood. Friends call me Hawk. White Company senior commander.”

“Arkk,” Arkk said, taking the man’s hand. Hawkwood’s attire was simplistic. Just a tunic with a leather jacket. A shield pin with a black chevron adorned his breast pocket. “You’re a mercenary company?”

“White Company is. I’m just a man. Don’t recognize you though.”

“You know everyone?”

Hawkwood shook his head. “Just everyone in the mercenary business. So, imagine my surprise when a dusty farmboy shows up reaching for the most dangerous job on the board. Wouldn’t the herbs be more your speed?”

“Farmboy? Dusty?” Arkk glanced down at his suit. He had taken care to keep it clean on the journey and that hadn’t changed in the last few hours since he put it on.

“You’ve got the clothes, but you don’t wear them like you belong. Your hands are calloused and not in the way a soldier’s would be. The back of your neck is heavily tanned, even more than your face, meaning you spend a lot of time looking down at the ground. Your hair is dry and unkempt. Anyone wearing clothes like that would grease their hair down every morning. There’s—”

“Alright, alright,” Arkk said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and brushing his fingers through his hair with the other. “So the clothes are useless?” Vezta was going to be disappointed.

“You might fool some people, but not me,” Hawkwood said with a grin. “So, what’s the story?”

Arkk sighed. “Just trying to figure out how all this works. I wasn’t going to take the job. Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Some very strange things happened recently and now I find myself with twenty-something orcs following my lead.” Hawkwood’s eyebrows crept up his forehead and he started looking around, making Arkk shake his head. “They aren’t here. I just wanted to find something for them to do so they don’t tear each other apart.”

“Did you want to get them killed?”

“No! Of course not.”

“Then skip over that job. Demihumans aren’t immune to gorgons either.”

Arkk wondered if Vezta might be immune. She had said that she survived a lot of things over the years. Then again, she hadn’t been positive that she would survive the orc chieftain’s magic.

“At least you’re seeing sense,” Hawkwood said, reading his face. “Well? What’s the story with the orcs?”

“A long one.”

“Tell you what, you tell me the story and I’ll show you the ropes. Get you putting those orcs to work. I’ll even throw in a meal.”

Arkk wasn’t sure he liked how Hawkwood phrased that, but it didn’t sound like the worst deal. At least not so long as he edited the story a bit. Those inquisitors had already been asking about Vezta. He didn’t need even more people talking about her or Fortress Al-Mir.

“Farm work?” Hawkwood’s fist hit the table as he laughed. “You made a bunch of warriors do farm work? I’m surprised they didn’t take your head for suggesting that!”

“It certainly didn’t win me any points with them,” Arkk said with a faint smile, skewering another slice of fish. Maybe he was just used to the river fish from around Langleey, but he wasn’t sure he liked oceanic fish much. It was the largest food industry in Cliff, so he supposed he would just have to get used to it. “Although, while we were farming, we got interrupted… Can you tell me anything about inquisitors?”

Hawkwood’s lingering chuckles died in an instant. He sobered up, snapping his gaze around the patio where they had gotten their meal from the vendor. Unlike the Primrose, however, it didn’t look like too many people were paying attention to their conversation.

“No good business comes from inquisitors,” Hawkwood said, all humor gone from his voice. “Inquisitors showed up while you were farming with the orcs?”

Arkk nodded. “They asked me a number of questions about the demon summoning. I told them basically what I just told you. Then… they asked about stars.” It was a bit of a risk to mention that, but at the same time, Arkk wondered if the more experienced mercenary might have some information. “Had no clue what they were talking about,” he added with a shrug.

Unfortunately, Hawkwood didn’t react to Arkk mentioning stars. “If they weren’t interested in demons, it was probably that magic you were throwing around. The church hates spellcasters that didn’t go to their approved academies. The orcs you sent to the burg talked, something about the way they described the magic made someone else call up the church.”

“Me? Not the magic the summoner was using?”

Hawkwood shrugged. “They hounded you, right?”

“Yes,” Arkk lied. They had been there for Vezta, not him. But he had already dropped the hint about stars. No need to say anything else.

“There you have it. I’d go get checked out at the academy, but if the inquisitors left without clapping your wrists in irons, you’re probably fine.”

Arkk stretched, then stood. “I was actually planning on stopping over there after the garrison,” he said. “Thanks for telling me about mercenary work.”

“No problem. It isn’t every day a new mercenary company pops up. Especially not one made up of demihumans.” Hawkwood stood as well, then held out his hand once more. “If you need any more help, stop on by the White Company building. It’s just down the road from the garrison. Can’t miss it.” He paused, then slowly nodded his head. “In fact, I have a contact who might appreciate you looking into a job that you and a bunch of orcs could do. Why not stop by in the morning?”

“Sounds good. I’ll bring my companions if that isn’t a problem.”

“The orcs?”

“One of them and then an elf.” Arkk frowned, looking the man in the eyes. “That isn’t a problem, is it?”

Hawkwood shook his head. “Not with me.”

“Good. See you then.”

With that end to their conversation, Arkk headed toward his second destination of the day. Helpful though Hawkwood had been, the mercenary work was just a diversion. Something that needed doing but not something he had been particularly interested in.

The magic academy was a passion.

Getting close to the Cliff academy sent tingles up his arms. Arkk honestly couldn’t tell if it was magic in the air or just his excitement, but by the time he walked through the wide-open gates and stepped into the academy foyer, he was positively vibrating.

And what a foyer it was. Carved straight into the mountainside, it almost felt like walking into the [HEART] chamber of Fortress Al-Mir. Except, instead of a floating magical artifact of unknown origin, there was a massive statue of a man in golden robes with one hand extended out as if welcoming people through the tall doors. His other hand held tight a thick scroll. Runes on the scroll glowed a brilliant gold that illuminated the entire statue.

The people walking about were scholarly types. Most wore clothes a lot like the suit Arkk had on, but he could tell just by looking at them that they had no muscle at all underneath. On average, at least. There were the odd ones that stood out. Hawkwood had been right about the hair, however. Every single person, man and woman, had styled, almost shining hair.

Pulling his collar up to hide the back of his neck, Arkk wandered through the halls, a bit disappointed when they turned out to be far more narrow and claustrophobic than the impressive foyer or even the corridors of Fortress Al-Mir. The lighting was poor as well. The academy didn’t use torches—something about Fortress Al-Mir made the soot and smoke vanish in a way that probably wouldn’t work here—but its glowstones weren’t half as strong as those used in certain rooms of the fortress.

He passed several rooms. Some looked like lecture halls. Others were obviously for practical magic usage. An alchemy station with bubbling alembics and glass tubes caught his attention for a moment but Arkk already had enough on his plate without learning a whole other discipline. Maybe another time.

Arkk stopped at an open door, spotting two people standing across from one another on a raised platform. Demonstrating something? Dueling? They had a small crowd watching. A crowd that Arkk found himself joining in, momentarily pausing his efforts to locate a library.

“—can block any energy-based spell with few exceptions. However, physical objects require a separate spell. As most outside these halls are not spellcasters, blocking physical objects is often more useful. The element is wind. The motion is a spinning sweep of your hands. The visualization is effectively a solid wall, but slightly more complicated. You may read my dissertation for more details. The incantation is hentikan semua benda yang masuk sebelum mencapai dagingku.” As soon as the woman on stage spoke the incantation, a haze enveloped her. A shimmer in the air, like fog, settled in, but only in a bubble around her person. Arkk couldn’t see through it clearly but her silhouette was there.

Turning away from the audience, the silhouette motioned.

On the other side of the stage, a tall man in a tall hat lifted a heavy wooden staff. With a motion from the staff, a dozen small rocks lifted from the ground in front of him. With another gesture, the rocks flew across the stage faster than arrows, but they didn’t make it through the haze around the woman. They sunk in, stopping rapidly, before going completely still. Most interestingly, they didn’t fall to the floor. Not until the woman canceled the spell and dispersed the haze.

“Unfortunately,” the woman said, “this spell is still in a prototype phase. While active, visibility is next to nothing. I’m working on that. Still, perhaps it will save your life. Commit it to memory.”

Arkk blinked a few times. The crowd around him nodded their heads, but all he could think was how. That spell, hentikan semua something something something was, first of all, far too long. Electro Deus was nice and snappy. Quick to speak, quick to cast, easy to remember. So was Slave Natum, for that matter. Her spell did look useful, visibility issue aside, but by the time he finished the incantation, he would wind up a pincushion of crossbow bolts and swords. The black book he stole from the summoner had similarly long spells in it. Flesh Weaving, which was twice as long as that, was the only one he had tried so far. It required such intense focus and concentration that using it on the battlefield would have been impossible anyway, making its long incantation not that big of an issue.

Unfortunately, Arkk didn’t get a chance to see more magic. That spell was the end of the demonstration. The others in the crowd meandered off toward the door, discussing the spell on the way. Some were calling it revolutionary, so it was apparently a big deal. Arkk… wondered if any of them had been in combat ever in their lives.

Arkk remained in place. The man with the staff used it to retrieve the stones, which he quickly pocketed. At the same time, the woman started cleaning up ritual circles on the ground that must have been used in earlier demonstrations.

“Excuse me?” Arkk said, approaching the stage. He had probably passed a dozen persons of authority in the hall on the way here, but he couldn’t tell the difference between a learner and a teacher by attire alone. This woman seemed close enough.

The woman looked up, violet eyes staring through the thin lenses of her glasses. Irritation flashed across her face before she put on a polite, if forced, smile. “Was there a question you had about my spell?”

“Ah. Yes?” Arkk almost asked about a library first but didn’t want to upset her by not asking about her revolutionary new spell. “You said this was a prototype? Is the incantation going to be shorter in the final version?”

“It is quite short already,” she said, looking surprised. “Twenty syllables.”

“It’s short?” Arkk asked, surprised as well. “Have you ever been in a fight before?”

The woman sneered, adjusting the long black cloak she wore open over a stylish bodice. “Do I look like some kind of ruffian to you?”

“No, but a spell that takes even a full second to cast seems a bit useless in actual combat.”

“Who are you?” she asked, adjusting her glasses. She swept her fingers through her jet-black hair as she finished. “You aren’t one of the church’s dullard initiates, nor are you a scholar. Explorer?”

Arkk wondered if she was basing her assumption on the color of his neck. “I’m self-taught. Just visiting today. But the spells—”

Understanding lit up in her eyes when he mentioned being a visitor. “You just need practice. A deft tongue makes for a deft spell,” she said as if quoting some source.

“But the other spells I know are all short. Each one is just two words.”

“Two…” She blinked a few times, started to laugh, but blinked once more as her eyes widened. “What kind of spells?”

“Well, a lightning bolt spell, a…” Arkk trailed off. The other two short spells he knew, Possession and Summon Lesser Servant were probably not the kinds of spells he should admit to knowing. The former for obvious reasons and the latter because servants were what had the inquisitors snooping about Langleey.

“Can you demonstrate?” the woman asked, not caring that he didn’t finish his explanation.

Arkk glanced around. From experience, he knew that the lightning spell didn’t like a lack of a real target. The room had cleared out during their brief discussion, letting him spot several chairs pressed up against one wall. Seeing nothing better, he pointed to one. “Is it alright if I destroy a chair?”

“Yes, hurry now.”

“Alright. Electro Deus,” Arkk said, pointing his hand toward the nearest chair. He pushed just a tiny sliver of magic into the spell. A bolt bridged the distance between him and the chair, slamming into it. It split in two, burning wood chips raining down around the larger seat and back pieces.

He looked back to the woman to find her mouth hanging open, her eyebrows up in her hairline, and her rectangular glasses sliding down the front of her nose.

“Miss?”

She blinked. Her jaw snapped closed. Reaching out, she snatched Arkk’s hand, twisting his arm to see his fingertips. Grabbing one finger, she wiggled it around while asking question after question. “No gesture? Or a thrusting gesture? What was the visualization? Element?”

“Uh—”

“Self-taught. Right. No preconceptions, allowing convention violations?” She clamped one hand under his jaw, yanking his head down to stare directly into Arkk’s eyes. Her face was close enough that their noses almost touched. “Open.”

“What?”

Her fingers pinched into his cheeks, forcing his mouth open. She stared into his open mouth until it got just a bit too uncomfortable for Arkk. He pulled back, knocking her hands aside when she tried to grab him again. She hardly seemed offended in the slightest, simply looking down at her hand for a moment before shrugging.

“No time like the present. Short Cast Experiment number one. Lightning bolt visualization, element… storm, obviously. Thrust gesture.” Thrusting a hand toward the next chair, she spoke the incantation. “Electro Deus.”

At first, nothing happened. The woman’s intense look of concentration didn’t waver. After a few more seconds, Arkk thought he saw something. It wasn’t a bolt of lightning, that was for sure, just a faint change in the lighting around her palm. If he hadn’t been focused on the woman’s hand, he would have missed it entirely.

He did not miss the woman collapsing into a heap on the stage in the very next instant.

 

 

Cliff was unlike anything Arkk had ever seen before.

Arkk wasn’t sure if he was vibrating in excitement or shaking from nerves. He was finally out of Langleey Village, traveling and seeing the world. Technically, he had been traveling for a week now, but some of the luster of travel had worn off once he realized that most villages weren’t meaningfully different from his village and most burgs were just larger villages.

Unlike the places they had traveled through to reach here, this was a city.

It was a bit annoying to get to. There was a big… well, mountainous cliff in the way. A large heap of earth and rock propped up into a thin mountain. Following the winding road around the mountain, past truly massive swaths of farmland, brought him to the city itself. Houses and buildings were crammed next to each other in tight rows. They sprawled back and forth, filling every available spot between the ocean and the mountain itself.

But the city itself didn’t look that impressive until one looked out to the ocean. A wide stone bridge over the water connected the city to another mountain, one that jutted right out of the waves. It wasn’t quite as high as the one on proper land, but it was what was on it that mattered.

There were a number of grandiose buildings built into the sides of the mountain, but at a certain point near the top, the entire mountain leveled off, supported by tall brick walls and natural cliff faces. Atop the plateau was the largest church Arkk had ever seen, stretching almost as tall as the mainland mountain. Arkk thought this might have been the first temple that he ever saw. There had been large churches in a few of the burgs on the way here, but this was on another level entirely.

Vezta would have hated it. Its white walls were adorned by golden symbols that seemed to glow, though that might have been a trick of the high sun.

Arkk didn’t see any storehouses and rotting food sitting out as he had heard, but this was just before harvest. Taxes wouldn’t have been collected yet.

There wasn’t much of a wall around the city. There was one, but it just ended at the mountain. The natural terrain was enough of a deterrent to any attacking forces. Two massive ballista-like devices sat atop towers on either side of the gate, ready to decimate any siege equipment that made it this far. Though, Arkk wasn’t sure if there had ever been an attack on the city before. Also unlike other burgs Arkk had visited on the way here, the guards around the large gate were stopping each cart.

Arkk was getting a little nervous as they approached. Why were the guards stopping carts? Had it been a mistake to bring Dakka? Would they reject her? What about Ilya? The elf had her ears tucked into a small hat again, hoping to disguise what she was from the Duke’s prying eyes, but if the guards ran up to her and started examining her, what were they to do? Fortress Al-Mir was well beyond reach at this point. He could still see it and move things around within his territory, but he had no territory anywhere nearby.

When Arkk finally brought their cart to a stop next to a pair of pike-wielding soldiers in blue and white striped tabards, he had worked himself into a nervous tension. One pikeless guard, along with a younger boy who held a note tablet and pen, stopped at the side of their cart. He barely looked up at Arkk.

“Local?”

“What?”

The guard threw a flat look at Arkk. “Are you from around here?”

“Oh. No.”

“Name, origin, profession if relevant, and purpose for visit,” the guard said in an utter monotone.

Clearing his throat to buy a moment for his bewilderment to die down, Arkk answered honestly. Mostly. “Arkk. I’m from Smilesville. Here to purchase a few books, if possible, and maybe have a look at mercenary work.”

The guard changed his demeanor with the mention of mercenary work, now looking over them with a bit more of a critical eye. He started with Arkk, looking him up and down, before turning his attention to Ilya and finally Dakka. When he turned back to Arkk, he let out a small breath through his nose. “Right,” he said, a slight laugh in his tone.

Arkk pressed his lips together, unsure of what the guard found funny, but decided not to comment. The guard wasn’t calling for Dakka’s head. It wouldn’t be a good idea to press their luck.

“Are you or any of your companions wanted in any of the four great states?” the guard asked, tone bored once more. Arkk shook his head, still not sure about Dakka but not willing to say yes to this guard no matter what. In response, the guard moved on with what had to be a script that he read dozens of times a day. “Are you transporting any magical artifacts, cursed items, enchanted items, or holy items?”

Again, Arkk shook his head. “No, Sir. Just what you see here. We’ve got some food and camping supplies, but nothing else.”

Arkk wasn’t even sure if the guard heard him, because he just continued with another question. “Are you transporting any alchemical solutions, magic reagents, or blighted fungus?”

“No.”

“Are you or any of your companions practicing necromancy?”

Arkk shifted, hesitating a moment before quickly shaking his head. “No.”

“Are you or any of your companions currently infected with blighted fungus?”

Arkk glanced to Ilya, who gave him a blank look, then back to Dakka. The orc offered a shrug and a shake of her head. “I… don’t think so. No.” Arkk honestly had no idea what that was. It sounded bad. If they were asking about it, it probably was bad.

The guard looked up again, rolled his eyes, and started waving his hand as he stepped back. “Whatever, you’re probably fine.”

“Oh.” Arkk blinked twice, surprised. Was blighted fungus not something to worry about then? “So, we can go in?”

“Don’t cause trouble.”

“No, Sir.” Arkk started to grab the reins, only to pause and look back to the guard. “I don’t suppose you know where we might be able to get lodging and food for a few nights?”

Arkk did not miss the way the guard’s eyes flicked to Dakka before answering. “The only place I would try if I were you is Primrose.” He looked into the city, beyond the large gate, and pointed with his entire arm. “Down the street, take a left turn at the large brown building toward the end. From there, continue forward until you reach the waterfront. Follow the waterfront past the harbor and you’ll eventually see Primrose down a street on the right. It has a yellow and black sign.”

“Right. Thanks.”

As they followed the guard’s directions, Arkk couldn’t help but think that the people who passed through Langleey Village were wrong. Almost every one of them mentioned the fresh salt-sea air as being something wonderful about Cliff—or any oceanside town. But now that he was tasting it for himself, Arkk did not agree. It wasn’t crisp like the air after a long rainstorm. It was… soggy. The air hung in his nose. If he were being honest, it made him feel a bit nauseous.

He definitely would not be bragging about the ocean breeze anytime soon.

The next big shock were ships. As big as the Baron’s manor with massive spires of wood sticking out of them. He had heard about them from visitors, but seeing one in person? He could hardly believe they floated, let alone moved. He had seen shallow-bottomed riverboats before, so he tried not to be too surprised. It wasn’t a very good try, however. These ships were in an entirely different class.

Continuing along, the wonder of the city started to die off as he realized that the route the guard had provided was taking them into progressively less well-maintained sections of the town. Buildings weren’t quite as intact as they had been elsewhere. Rotted wood that didn’t fit together in snug seams, possibly rotten from that unpleasant salty air, made up most of the buildings out here.

Perhaps he should have noticed earlier, but entering this section of the city just made it all the more apparent that demihumans and beastmen weren’t exactly welcome around Cliff. From the gates up until about halfway through the harbor, Cliff had been dominated by humans. The guards hadn’t barred Dakka from entering and the occasional demihumans were wandering around. Here, however, was the opposite. The occasional human was interspaced by elves, dark elves, and orcs for the most part. Arkk did spot a gremlin smoking a pipe while leaning against a wall, a pair of fairies flying overhead on their thin wings, and even what he was pretty sure was a sphinx lounging outside one building.

Neither of his companions spoke, but Arkk could feel the dour mood that had settled in as they continued through the city.

Arkk almost missed the turn for Primrose. It wasn’t even that he was distracted looking at demihumans he had heard about but had never seen before. There was a signboard but the colors on it were so faded that he would have been better instructed to look for a gray and slightly lighter gray signboard where the remnants of paint were maybe in the shape of a primrose flower.

A small stable next to the Primrose building handled the cart and horse for a small fee. He had long since broken down a few gold coins into a pouch of silver on their journey, which was by far preferable. Paying in gold was sure to draw attention and it was kind of a waste; when faced with a gold coin, a lot of merchants didn’t have enough silver on hand to cover the difference… or they didn’t want to cover the entire difference because then they wouldn’t have any silver themselves. Arkk had ended up overpaying for a lot of goods unintentionally but was unable to do anything… and then there were the merchants who, upon seeing a gold coin, suddenly had price increases on all their wares.

Primrose was a stayover cabin, although a bit larger than the three they had stayed in on the journey. Most larger burgs had them. It was a strange concept, a building dedicated to people traveling. Smaller villages, including Langleey, housed visitors in the local church or individual homes if there was a spare room.

The entire ground floor was dominated by the smell of roasting meat. Several people, mostly demihumans with the occasional beastman or human thrown between, occupied a number of tables. The kitchens were over on one side, but Arkk spotted a woman behind a rounded counter that looked like the right place to start.

The proprietor of Primrose was an elderly little human. Her hair was almost as silver as Ilya’s, though from old age rather than a natural coloration. She leaned forward when Arkk approached, holding a hand to her ear.

“Do you have any rooms available?” Arkk asked, raising his voice.

The old woman slowly ran her eyes over the group. Once finished, she opened a small drawer at the counter she sat behind and pulled out an old iron key in a shaking hand. “Two silvers a night,” she said.

Arkk raised his eyebrows but didn’t argue. That was less than half the price the stayovers in the burgs had charged. “Not sure how long we’ll be staying,” Arkk said, handing over three nights’ worth of payment. “If we stay longer, is that a problem?”

“Only if you don’t pay, dearie,” she said, sweeping the coins into another drawer.

“Good. Good. I don’t suppose you would know the best place to acquire books on magic and books—or just someone to talk to—about history?”

“I don’t know much about history, but the magical academy built into the mountainside is where all the spellcasters study.”

Hopefully one of the spellcasters there would have more information on purchases. He wasn’t all that interested in sticking around, learning magic at the academy in the long term. He wanted books he could take back home. Scholars seemed like a good place to start with history as well. He wasn’t sure that they would find anything on Fortress Al-Mir or Vezta’s former master, but anything they did find might be useful.

“How about somewhere we might inquire about mercenary work?”

Somewhere behind him, Arkk heard a distinctive snort. He half-turned but didn’t see who it might have been. Ilya leaned close, whispering in his ear, “Does everyone think we can’t handle ourselves? If they saw what we did at the barrows…”

Arkk just shrugged his shoulders as the old woman began talking again. “You’ll want to stop by the garrison,” she said, then looked over Arkk’s shoulder. “But they won’t enjoy the presence of your companions.”

Lips pressed together, Arkk nodded. “And… is there any method to go about getting a meeting with the Duke?”

The old woman stared. Her mouth flapped a few times, but no words came out. She just stared.

It wasn’t just her. There was a small ripple effect through the room where casual conversations died off into hushed whispers. Even those were quickly silenced. Arkk wondered just how many people had been listening in on his questions.

“Did you hear that boys?” someone eventually shouted. “They want a meeting with the Duke!”

That was the signal for the entire room to descend into a fit of cruel laughter. It didn’t last long and regular conversation sprung up again. The few words Arkk caught of it now centered around their group and what they could possibly want from the Duke. Or what they could be thinking. Ilya’s face darkened as the conversations continued, making him wonder what her sharp ears picked up.

“Well, thanks for the room and information,” Arkk said with a polite smile to the old woman.

“Upstairs, down the long hallway, third door on the left,” she said, leaning back. “Don’t make trouble.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that today,” Arkk mumbled, shooting a glance at Ilya.

The room wasn’t bad. It was as worn down as the rest of the building, but the bed looked decent enough. There was only one bed, but no one present was bothered by that. They slept in the back of the cart on a few of the nights when they hadn’t made it to any villages or burgs.

“What were they laughing at?” Ilya hissed as she tossed her rucksack on the floor.

“Maybe if we were dressed in our nice clothes rather than our travel clothes,” Arkk said with a small shrug. He had known that just walking up and meeting the Duke wasn’t going to be as simple as it sounded. They would have to figure something out. For now… “How secure do you think this room is?” he asked, looking at the handle on the door.

“I could break the walls down with my shoulder,” Dakka said, knocking her knuckles on the wood. “Doubt it would be that hard.”

“Yes, but how likely is that?”

“If they—” Dakka paused, stepped away from the wall, and dropped her voice to a near whisper. “If they see how much you’re carrying around? Guaranteed.”

“Is it really that much? I only took a small—”

“A single gold coin is a life-changing amount to most of the people living here,” Dakka interrupted. Arkk clamped his jaw shut but was fairly happy to be interrupted by the orc. He would much rather have her speak her mind than be stiff and unresponsive. “I’ve never been here, never spoken with anyone who lived here, but you can just tell by looking around the place.”

Arkk nodded slowly. He had noticed on the way in but hadn’t thought about it in terms of coins. A part of him wondered why the people here stayed here. Everything was so run down. Shunted away into the ass-end of the city as they were, the demihumans were not welcome in the rest of the city. He had only spoken with two people so far and both had insinuating comments to make about Dakka at the very least.

They all had two legs—or wings in the case of those fairies—why stick around? Langleey had been happy to have the help of a bunch of orcs that had attacked only a few weeks prior. Surely other villages nearby would be the same. If they put in a bit of work in helping out the farms, they would surely be more welcome out there than inside the city.

“Well,” he said, approaching the window. There was no glass. Two heavy wooden shutters swung outward, allowing light and fresh air in. His nose wrinkled as soon as he realized that fresh air meant ocean air, but he looked out nonetheless. The tall church in the distance gleamed in the sunlight over the tops of nearby buildings. “We’ve got some starting places,” he said. “The magic academy and the garrison.”

Aside from the church, the view out the window wasn’t that good. Just rooftops for a street or two before taller buildings blocked the rest of the city. He couldn’t even see the water of the ocean.

“The latter of which isn’t a good place for us,” Ilya said with a frown. “And the former… I have no idea what I’d even be looking for in a magic library.”

Dakka grunted in agreement. “You want to know more about…” she hesitated, glancing at Ilya for a moment. “About an elf consort of the Duke’s?”

Ilya pressed her lips together, shooting a mild glare at Dakka. The phrasing could have been better, but it wasn’t exactly inaccurate. “My mother. Alya,” Ilya eventually said. “I don’t know exactly what the Duke wanted with her, but… She would have appeared here roughly fifteen years ago.”

“Sounds like a job I can do,” Dakka said, motioning toward the door. “Kick around these parts, find the places where people ask questions, and see about learning why everyone laughed at our meeting with the Duke. If I read the atmosphere right, they’ll be more willing to talk to me than a human and an elf hiding her ears.”

“Will you be alright on your own?” Arkk asked.

Dakka snorted. Or scoffed. Both? “I’d be more worried about you two.”

“I can take care of myself,” Ilya said with a note of irritation in her tone.

“I’m going to try the garrison first,” Arkk said. “Tomorrow morning. Then I’ll head over and see if I can’t find anything at the academy. Ilya, do you want to go with—”

“I want to explore.”

“Explore?”

“Just… run through the city for a day. See it with my own eyes.”

“Alright,” Arkk said after a moment. “I don’t have to tell you to be careful.”

Ilya nodded, adjusting her hat.

“Well, I don’t know about the two of you, but whatever they were roasting downstairs smelled like the best thing I haven’t eaten. I’m going to go correct that. Join me?” Arkk asked, glancing between the two of them.

Having had nothing but travel provisions for the last day and a half, since they left one of the burgs, the two of them readily agreed.

 

 

 

“And then they just left.”

Arkk looked around the room, staring at the morose faces. Well, one morose face.

Fortress Al-Mir had undergone some reorganization. The orcs had a whole village-sized section of the fortress to themselves. Heavy iron doors fabricated by the blacksmith wouldn’t let any of them cross over into a more secluded area for him, Ilya, and Vezta. He and Ilya even had private rooms, made using the same living area magic that allowed the orcs to create personalized homes for themselves.

His room was a fairly simple affair with wood flooring and wood panels on the walls. A large open room covered with a rich violet rug. He had a remarkably comfortable bed, a desk, and a shelf that held just a single black book at the moment. Stone shields hung from the ceiling like chandeliers, their maze-like pattern broken up by a compass rose with a bright gemstone in the middle.

Ilya’s room was a bit more extravagant. It looked like a slice of a castle, complete with a roaring stone fireplace, massive four-poster bed, and large windows that, despite being underground, still managed to look out over the Cursed Forest as if her room was set in a high tower.

Vezta had denied needing room.

This room, however, was a dedicated meeting room. It too had walls adorned with maze-engraved shields with compass roses and gemstones. That seemed to be the theme of this place. There was a large table and… that was it. Rekk’ar and Olatt’an sat on one side of the table. Ilya sat next to Arkk. Vezta stood to his other side. Of all of them, Ilya was the only one who looked concerned.

“Horror from beyond the stars?” she repeated, smile a little tighter than normal. Slowly, Ilya looked over to Vezta.

“First, that is highly insulting. Beyond the stars? Really?”

Ilya glanced over, losing her concern for a moment as she raised an eyebrow. “That’s the part you have a problem with?”

“I am from the [STARS]. Not from beyond the stars,” she said slowly as if explaining to a child. “Whatever does that mean? These humans know nothing about me.”

“It’s close enough that it gave me a start,” Arkk said. “The orcs we gave to the Duke must have described you. It probably wasn’t a very accurate description, but they still got that much right. That’s enough to be alarmed over; these inquisitors did not look that friendly.”

“They didn’t follow you, did they?” Ilya asked. “Did they see the teleportation circle?”

Arkk shook his head. “I watched from the Baron’s manor until their carriage disappeared over the horizon. The circle is hidden behind the carpentry workshop. They wouldn’t have seen it coming or going.”

“Master,” Vezta said, lips turning to a frown as she spoke. “It may be prudent to destroy the teleportation circles.”

“Destroy? But how will—”

“Not permanently, Master, but anyone capable of magic will be able to appear within our walls at will. With these hostile magic users in the area, the circles are a liability.”

Arkk put his elbows on the table, interlacing his fingers. He could already see Ilya ready to object if he agreed. Vezta was right, of course, but Langleey was their home. Arkk had little doubt that Ilya would abandon the fortress long before she abandoned the village.

Not that they were abandoning it if they destroyed the circles. It would just be less convenient to reach. To her, that was probably the same thing.

“We’ll move them,” Arkk said. “Out of the library and into a more secure room. Perhaps on the surface. Somewhere that someone would have to try to get down here. The passage up and down will be beyond the section of the fortress where the orcs live.”

Rekk’ar, despite caring nothing about the drama of humans showing up knowing something about Vezta, leaned forward and hit the table with his fist. “You plan to use us as guards?”

Arkk, though he flinched at the fist hitting the table, met Rekk’ar’s eyes without wavering. “I hired you all for something. That something is certainly not farm work, as you handily proved yesterday. You’re telling me you don’t want to fight either? I don’t believe it.”

Rekk’ar held Arkk’s gaze for a few seconds longer before letting out a laugh as he leaned back in his seat. “The human can be taught. Wonderful.”

Suppressing a roll of his eyes, Arkk just shook his head. “Speaking of fighting, I wanted to discuss the possibility of mercenary work for the orcs.”

“Mercenary work?”

“You know, hunt down some highwaymen who are causing trouble for travelers or—”

“I know what mercenary work is,” Rekk’ar growled. “I’m asking what jobs you have for us. I imagine some of the rowdier crew would love to get out and take some heads.”

“I don’t have any. We would need to visit a city that posts jobs.” Arkk glanced aside at Ilya.

Her eyes widened. “Now? In the middle of harvest?”

“Lousy as the orcs were at working the scythes, we did clear out the entire oat field. That is a massive load of work off the village. They’ll be fine without us for the remainder.” He paused a moment, taking a breath, but quickly started speaking before Ilya could say anything. “Not to do anything about your mother. At least not yet. We’re going for mercenary jobs, we’re going to get some spell books, we’re going to take a look that will help us come up with a better plan for Alya, and now… we need to go to figure out just what this Master Inquisitor Darius Vrox might be planning with us.”

Turning to his other side, Arkk looked over Vezta. The prim and proper servant looked perfectly prepared to agree to whatever he asked. “Can you handle things here for… a week? Two? I hope we wouldn’t be gone longer than that but I honestly don’t know how long it will take to reach Cliff.”

“I am unable to command the [HEART] as you do, I cannot construct rooms or mobilize your forces as you do, but I will defend the [HEART] to my dying breath.”

“I meant, can you keep things running here without the fortress falling to pieces?”

“Oh. That should be possible, yes.”

Nodding, Arkk looked at the two orcs. “I have no idea what your group is both capable of and willing to do. If one of you…”

Olatt’an slowly shook his head, making Arkk trail off. “Your power keeps most in line. With you gone, keeping order falls to us. After that stunt you pulled with the farming, if one of us—”

“Stunt? That was reparations.”

Rekk’ar scoffed. “Whatever you call it, it’s made us… unhappy. If one of us is gone, you’ll come back to a burned-out husk of a dungeon.”

Vezta narrowed her eyes. “I won’t allow it.”

“Then you’ll return to a bunch of dead orcs.” Rekk’ar shifted in his seat, clenching his teeth like he didn’t want to admit something. Even still, he opened his mouth. “I’m not strong enough to keep twenty angry orcs in line. Olatt’an carries some respect, but not enough. Aside from that… well…”

“There is a chance I won’t be popular in most human cities,” Olatt’an said, smiling a sad smile. “There is a chance those mercenary postings you wish to look at carry sketches of my face.”

“Alright,” Arkk said with a frown, shooting a glance at Ilya before looking back to Olatt’an. “Do I want to ask?”

“Doubtful.”

Arkk pressed his lips together but didn’t ask. Olatt’an was the most levelheaded of all the orcs. He knew he had something of a past to have earned the moniker of Ripthroat, but all the orcs had a past. Whatever he had been, he wasn’t anymore. And Arkk really couldn’t afford to lose him if it meant riots.

He would ask one day. But not today.

“Take Dakka,” Olatt’an said. “You might not have noticed, but she has been trying to draw your eyes more often lately.”

“Draw my eyes?”

“Besides,” Rekk’ar cut in with a hardy laugh. “She’s short. Less threatening to humans.”

With her massive axe and spiked shield, Arkk didn’t think she was much less threatening. “If we’re going based on that, Larry’s the best choice.”

He meant it as a joke—Arkk severely doubted that Larry would be able to talk about the groups’ capabilities or willingness to do certain jobs. However, neither of the other two laughed. They just glanced at each other. Arkk took a breath and closed his eyes.

“Is he on wanted posters too?” he said, taking a guess based on their expressions.

“He told you that he had a shack in some human village.”

“Pineberg Burg,” Arkk said, remembering.

“He didn’t tell you why he left.” Olatt’an pressed his lips together. “They found a little girl’s body chopped up in the woods behind his home.”

Ilya gasped. “He didn’t…”

“Says he didn’t,” Rekk’ar said. “And I believe him. I mean, look at the oaf. He’s got a gut, but doesn’t have the guts.” After laughing at his joke, Rekk’ar’s face turned serious once more. “When the executioners are on the hunt and you’re an orc in a human settlement, you don’t stick around.”

Arkk closed his eyes, nodding his head. That made an unfortunate amount of sense. He had wondered why Larry was part of their group since first spotting him. It was because he had no choice.

“But Dakka is fine? Not wanted in many cities?”

“Doubt it.”

“Fine. Ilya, Dakka, and I will leave in the morning. You work with Vezta to keep things running here. Destroy the teleportation circles.”

“You can’t use them to get to the city?” Olatt’an asked.

Arkk glanced at Vezta, who shrugged. “I was told that they have a limited range. And to make the existing ones, I had to show Vezta where to put them. I’ve… never actually been to Cliff. I don’t know the way there. I might find it by searching along the roads but…”

“Nor have I,” Ilya said, a slight tremble in her lip. She straightened her back, took a deep breath, and nodded at Arkk. “Let’s do this.”

In all his years, Arkk had never left Langleey Village. He had ventured out to the Cursed Forest, and a bit beyond, and Stone Hearth Burg sat just on the edge of the forest he and Ilya had been hunting in. Those were close enough that they didn’t count. He had never been outside the forested plains that Langleey Village was at the center of.

It wasn’t that travel was too far or the journey was overly dangerous. He just never had a reason to do so. There was work to be done around the village. The travelers who passed through might have filled his head with adventure and excitement but when the sun came up, it was time to head back to the fields.

Ilya had left the village twice as far as Arkk knew. Once just a few weeks ago when she had taken a small group of orcs to Smilesville Burg. Once as a young girl, before her mother had been taken. Arkk didn’t know where they had gone, but Ilya hadn’t bragged about it. So, she had never left it either. All Arkk knew was that it was something about her ancestral people.

Walking along the road out of town, Arkk glanced at their third companion. Even though she was the shortest orc in Fortress Al-Mir, she was still just a bit taller than Ilya. Her black hair was tightly woven against either side of her head but was loose on top, hanging down one side of her face to her chin. Dozens of metal rings adorned her ears and even more metal covered the majority of her body in the form of armor.

Arkk considered asking her about her travel history, but… after hearing about Olatt’an and Larry, Arkk wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

“Are the roads very dangerous these days?” he asked instead.

It took Dakka a moment to realize that Arkk was talking to her, not Ilya. She stiffened, glancing at him with her red eyes. She had dark paint under and around them, presumably to help against the glare of the sun. After taking a long moment to consider his question, she finally answered. “We never traveled the roads,” she said. “If that is what you’re asking.”

“I was wondering more about your armor. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us. It isn’t too late for me to send it back to the fortress if you don’t want to lug it around.”

Ilya had her black and white elvish bow and Arkk had a sword—though he planned to use magic over metal if at all possible—they had otherwise packed light. Well, mostly light. A significant fraction of the weight Arkk had in his pack was gold.

“If… you don’t mind, Sir, I would prefer if I kept my equipment.” She sounded stiff, afraid of offending him. “You said we would hire a wagon in the next burg.”

“That is true, but we won’t reach it today.” As much as Arkk would have liked to take horses from Langleey, they just couldn’t spare them at the moment. Not with the harvest going on.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve walked much more than a day with the horde.”

Arkk let the topic drop. Occasionally, as they walked on, he would try to draw Dakka into a conversation. The topics ranged from thoughts about what Cliff might be like with Ilya, musings about what Vezta might get up to in their absence, and even what kind of travel food was best. Dakka gave clipped responses, grunts that might have been agreements or disagreements, or just tried to avoid getting looped into the conversations altogether.

By the time night fell and they stopped for camp, Arkk was wondering if he had done something to upset Dakka. They didn’t speak often, but when they did, he hadn’t thought their interactions were quite so stiff.

Ilya took the first watch.

Partway through the night, Arkk found himself shaken awake. Nothing happened during Ilya’s watch. Her brief statement about whatever she had seen had been more of a yawn than a proper sentence but she kicked him off the small mat and immediately crawled onto it. Through the link between them, he could tell that she had fallen asleep almost the second her head hit the pillow.

At the same time, through the same link, he could tell that Dakka was not asleep. At least, she wasn’t anymore. The orc hadn’t brought any kind of mat and was just leaning up against a tree, shield over her body as if it were a particularly stiff blanket. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was steady, but Arkk could still tell that she was wide awake.

The fire was still going, he noted. It wasn’t a proper wood-burning fire, but the same magical ritual he had thought was a light spell back when he first found Fortress Al-Mir. He didn’t think it should have lasted this long, but…

Well, the [HEART] provided a massive advantage to spellcasters in that it refilled its contractor’s magic at an absurd rate, according to Vezta. The more minions and territory, the greater the capacity and throughput. So he wasn’t too surprised that the little flame was going.

Crouching down next to the flame, trying to warm himself up a bit, Arkk kept stealing glances at Dakka, wondering if she had slept at all. Was she worried about an attack? Ilya hadn’t been or she never would have just fallen asleep as she had, and elves could see at night and hear better than humans or orcs could.

Then what? Was it him? Ilya?

“Are you alright, Dakka?” he said, deciding to just ask. He didn’t look up from the fire as he spoke, still rubbing his hands together and holding them over it.

Dakka remained still for a long moment, but she eventually opened her eyes. “You knew I was awake?”

Arkk shrugged. “Guessed,” he lied. He hadn’t told anyone the full power the [HEART] gave him over those in his employ. Being able to teleport them around within his territory was alarming enough. They didn’t need to know more. “Did I do something to upset you?”

That got a reaction from her. Her eyes widened and she sat up straight. “No. Of course not.” She paused, then added, “Sir.”

“Why so formal and stiff? I don’t remember you being this way back in the fortress. You usually seemed… excited to see me, if anything.”

“We’re on a mission,” Dakka answered after a long moment.

“It isn’t that kind of mission. We’re just camping and traveling together as friends, not marching off to kill another demon summoner.”

“Friends?”

“Yeah. I mean… unless…”

Maybe that was the wrong word to use. He had kind of threatened Dakka, along with the rest of the orcs, into joining up with him. Ostensibly, he was her superior in whatever hierarchy the fortress had. Vezta had said that he was to be a leader, but he didn’t feel like the position was right for him. Rather, he felt like a babysitter, watching the village children while their parents went on a long hunt. Instead of rambunctious children, they were an army of orcs.

Dakka leaned back against the tree, slowly closing her eyes without saying anything else. Arkk figured the conversation had died a miserable death, but she slowly started speaking.

“Hearing movement around me while I sleep is generally a sign that something bad is about to happen.”

Arkk looked up, but her eyes were still closed.

“I would wake up to find the bottoms of my boots missing, my axe slammed against a rock to dull or chip its edge. Or, I might even be woken up by the others throwing stones at me.”

“The orcs did that?” Arkk asked, aghast. “Because you’re a little smaller than the others?”

“There is always a runt.”

“Not here,” Arkk said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, both Ilya and I are smaller than you.” Even if it wasn’t by much in Ilya’s case.

“Physically,” Dakka countered. “She’s your right hand. You’re… you.”

“Regardless, neither of us are going to attack you. I fully intend to get a few more hours of sleep, so you best be up for watch in a couple of hours. That means getting rest.”

Dakka’s eyes snapped open. She stared for a long moment, utterly still, before speaking slowly, one word at a time. “You… trust me with watch?”

“Of course? Should I not?”

“No! No, Sir! You can count on me.”

“Good. Then get some sleep.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And quit that. I’m just Arkk.”

Dakka stared, nodded, then closed her eyes again. She didn’t fall asleep immediately, of course, but Arkk felt her doze off before too long. Before waking her up for watch, Arkk spent a few minutes examining Fortress Al-Mir. Even away from it, he could still see everything going on inside its halls. He could even move its occupants around at will if he needed to. Not that he did, right now. Everything seemed calm and business as usual.

Come morning, Dakka was a bit less stiff and stand-offish, so Arkk counted their little conversation as a win. She even started a conversation or two on the walk. Nothing consequential, just small talk about fighting, mostly.

All conversation came to an abrupt halt as they spotted Smilesville Burg.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have come here,” Arkk said slowly.

Ilya looked sick. “Barbaric.”

The burg itself was a large city. Ten Langleey Villages could have fit within its walls. It had walls. Large stone defensive walls with periodic towers along them. Homes and other buildings dotted the land outside the walls, and the land itself was covered in fields far larger than Langleey had. People toiled around in the fields. It was harvest here as well.

But what really stopped the conversation were the wooden poles erected along the path to the city.

Rotted, fetid corpses of orcs hung from ropes on the poles, dangling in the light breeze as carrion feeders pecked at bits of dangling flesh.

Arkk kept his eyes locked on the sight but used his power over the [HEART] to check on Dakka. A strange double-vision hit Arkk, letting him see the orc as if he were facing her. She looked on, face mostly impassive. To her, this didn’t matter, it was just a thing that happened. Arkk wondered if the slight curl in her lip was a smile. Given what she had said last night, some or all of those might have been among her tormentors.

How many of the orcs in his employ had attacked her in her sleep?

Eventually, Dakka glanced over. “Why did we stop? You knew they were going to be executed when you brought them here, right?” she shrugged. “They deserved it.”

“I didn’t think they’d…” Ilya trailed off, shaking her head in disgust. “It’s been weeks! They should have buried them.”

“It’s a warning to other raiders,” Dakka said with another shrug. “Stay in line or go for a swing.”

“Ugh.”

“Stay close to us,” Arkk said. “Don’t want them getting any ideas about you. Let’s just see if they’ve got a cart we can buy, some provisions, and get out of here before anyone notices we’re here.”

“Like they’re going to miss me,” Dakka scoffed. Still, as they started walking again, she stepped closer to Arkk, sliding between him and Ilya.

In the end, Arkk had rushed their departure even more than he thought he needed to. The more they walked through town, the more it looked like a lynch mob might form. It was a shame. He had wanted to check around and see how one might take on mercenary jobs. Getting jobs at the closest burg, one still within range of Fortress Al-Mir, would have been convenient.

Still, even as hostile as the town was, they were more than willing to accept a few gold coins for what he needed. Supplies, a horse and cart, and directions.

With that, they were off toward the City of Cliff.