Like last time, Arkk expected to find himself thrust into combat the moment he was through the ritual circle. Instead, he found the air oddly calm and lacking in the sounds of battle. Hurrying around the carpentry workshop, Arkk spotted a group gathered out near the bridge over the river.
A divide ran through the group. On one side, wary villagers took up arms with whatever weapons they had been able to grab. They didn’t look nearly as organized as they had been while preparing for the initial defense a week ago. Across from the villagers, a quintet of orcs stood, shuffling in obvious nervousness.
At first, Arkk thought they might have been an entirely different group of orcs, ignorant of the horde that had attacked just days prior. It wasn’t like orcs were a species constantly trying to pillage and raid. Just the opposite. In contrast to the few hostile, many orcs were like any other being trying to live their lives. Not an easy prospect in the Duke’s territory. As long as demihumans and beastmen avoided the main cities where the majority of the Duke’s army patrolled, it was perfectly possible.
Or so he heard from the various visitors to the village over the years.
Arkk’s suspicions reignited upon examining them a little closer. They wore armor, not clothes. Two wielded crossbows, gripped tight in gloved fingers, while the other three had a mix of axes and pikes. These were not simple travelers. They were mercenaries at best. Given recent history, they were almost certainly from the horde that had attacked the village.
But they weren’t fighting now.
Arkk hurried over, a dozen paces behind Ilya and Vezta, the latter still in the former’s shadow.
John moved to intercept him and Ilya, concern on his face even as he gripped one of his lumber axes tight in his hands. “Hale? Where is Hale?”
Ilya glanced back, meeting Arkk’s eyes.
“She’s safe. I told her to stay put for now. What’s going on?”
A flicker of relief crossed John’s countenance as he half-turned. “I think they want to speak with you. They won’t talk to anyone but the ‘Warrior of Lightning’.” He paused, pressing his lips together. “I saw Hale disappear. Just… gone.”
“She’s safe,” Arkk said again. “Though I didn’t know she could use magic.”
“Nor I,” John said, looking back to the orcs. “I knew she had talent, but… I suspect she’ll want to apprentice herself to you now.”
Ilya let out a hefty scoff, rolling her eyes. Arkk just shook his head. “I don’t know magic.”
Despite the tense atmosphere, John still managed to inject a little sarcasm into his tone. “Oh? I suppose you’re not the ‘Warrior of Lightning’ then.”
“Okay. I know one spell, a ritual or two, and a lot of ways of blowing things up.” Arkk shook his head again. “Later. We need to deal with this. Any idea what they want?”
“You. Maybe your head on a pike? Maybe just a chat. They didn’t say much.” John paused, then added, “Glad you kept her away. This could get messy. Hurtt and Jorgen are ready to hammer their heads in. The Baron is with the other villagers, but Abbess Keena went to fetch him as soon as the orcs started demanding to talk to you.”
“No sign of goblins?”
John waved a hand. “Don’t know anything else beyond what you see.”
“Great. At least nothing is burning yet.”
Arkk pressed his lips together, taking a deep breath. Talking with visitors to the village was normally the Baron’s duty. The Baron wasn’t a fighter, nor did he possess much physical strength to fight if necessary. He spent his spare time whittling toys for the village children. An activity that made him popular but wouldn’t help here if the situation turned chaotic.
Ilya met his eyes. She nodded her head ever so slightly, then stepped aside. “They want to talk with the one who beat them.”
“Right.”
Arkk stepped forward. John stayed a step behind to one side and Ilya, with Vezta, stayed on the other side. He stopped a few paces away from the orcs, not sure at all what to say to them. Up close, they were all at least a head taller than he was. Ilya was far more their vertical equal, yet their eyes were locked on him. The silence was going to grow even more uncomfortable if he didn’t say something, however, so he opened his mouth.
“You would dare return here?”
He felt like cringing the moment the words were out of his mouth. Was threatening the right move? Was that even threatening? It didn’t sound like it. Arkk had a hard time seeing himself as threatening, but… well, lightning was an incantation away. Vezta’s darkness was slowly spreading out underneath their feet as well, though it didn’t look like the orcs noticed in the dying sunlight. Her tendrils would probably crush all five of them in an instant.
Maybe he was intimidating.
One of the orcs snorted, baring his teeth. “The human doesn’t look like a monster of lightning and shadow and fury. Demonstrate.”
“Demonstrate lightning? By frying one of you?”
Another orc, the smallest of the group, grabbed the metal armguards of the first, tugging on him. “I saw his face. That’s the one that turned Jakk’en to ash.”
Arkk didn’t remember turning anyone, goblin or orc, to ash, but if he was being vouched for, he supposed he shouldn’t complain. Instead, he straightened his back, trying his best to look even a little more intimidating. The orc in the lead, a hulk of muscle with a flat face and thick black hair from his ears to his chin, just snorted again.
Arkk blamed the height difference. It was hard to intimidate someone so large.
The shorter orc, who still stood a head over Arkk, was a woman with grayer, more tan-colored skin and dark hair braided tight against her skull on the sides but hung loose on top. She stepped forward. “We have come to seek your aid,” she said. She opened her mouth to say more but caught the closed fist of the taller orc in the stomach instead. Aside from a brief step back and a snarl revealing sharp lower tusks, she didn’t react. None of the other orcs looked concerned in the slightest.
“Aid?” Hurtt called from somewhere behind Arkk. “Burning down more villages?”
“Kill ’em before they can try!” Jorgen shouted.
Arkk felt more than saw John turn at his side. He assumed John did something because a brief rallying cry from a few of the other assembled villagers cut off before it could really begin.
The lead orc didn’t move his eyes from Arkk. He crossed his arms, curling a lip to show his tusk. “You killed our chief’s brother,” he said, tone surprisingly neutral, though it still had an exaggerated snarl under the words. Most orcs spoke with a guttural growl, but he was laying it on thick.
Arkk had no idea how to respond to the accusation. It was probably true. He had killed several orcs. “Shouldn’t have attacked?” he tried.
One of the others, the older orc, snorted. Laughed, even? Arkk wasn’t the best at reading orcs. Especially angry orcs.
“Any other orc and we would have moved on. Found easier prey. But the chief wants revenge for her brother.”
“They’re coming back?” someone behind Arkk whispered.
Someone else, far louder, barked out a forced laugh. “Arkk and Vezta will thrash them again. These are the cowards, running away!”
That comment got the lead orc to unleash a full snarl, taking an aggressive step forward. Two of the others grabbed his arms, barely keeping him a step outside Vezta’s shadow. Arkk might have backed up from that if it weren’t for Vezta. She had tendrils at his back, snaked up his legs under his trousers, forcing him to maintain his stance.
“The chief captured travelers off the road,” another tan-skinned orc, bald with a wrinkled and battle-scarred face, barked out. As he spoke, Arkk noted that he didn’t seem to have tusks. His teeth were not that different from a human’s, though aged and missing one or two. “She’s going use them to summon a demon to fight your monster. Tonight.”
The jeers and laughs from the villagers cut off instantly. The shadows underneath Arkk’s feet twisted in a way that he could only describe as anger. A sharp gasp from the approaching Abbess took Arkk’s attention off the orcs for a moment. Long enough to see the Baron at her side topple backward, fainting. That got a raucous round of laughter from the orcs.
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All except for the shortest one. She took another step forward. “The chief will destroy us all! Some fled already. She killed or captured those trying to flee. Most support her,” she said, teeth clenched together. Her fists clenched. “You don’t care about us, but the demon will come for you next. Help us.”
“Help you?” Jorgen shouted. “So you can go back to raiding other villages?”
“Or stab us in the back.”
“Kill ’em! And the summoner!”
The orc backed up in line with the others, all of whom now looked far warier. They weren’t quite brandishing their weapons, but they were a lot closer now that they were facing an angry mob. Angrier mob.
Arkk’s heart hammered in his chest. Demons. He didn’t know exactly what a demon was. A deal maker that could grant almost any wish in exchange for a price too steep for anyone to pay. His mouth felt dry. Could he and Vezta fight a demon? Vezta was strong, but as she said, she was not a fighter. Even against pathetic goblins, they had almost been overwhelmed. A demon would likely be far stronger than dozens of goblins.
They had to kill the summoner before the demon could appear. It was the only option. And without knowing where the summoner was…
“We can’t kill them,” Arkk said, turning his back to the orcs to face the villagers. “They know where—”
“She wants you!”
Arkk spun back around at the cry. “Electro Deus!” he shouted before he even saw the orc rushing him with a pike. Lightning sparked from his fingertips, catching the charging orc in his chest. An arrow appeared between his eyes, fired from over Arkk’s right shoulder. At the same time, oily tendrils sprouted from the shadows, looping around the orc’s arms and legs. Pulling him taut, the tendrils twisted in opposite directions.
A broken, skewered, smoking corpse hit the ground long before it could reach him.
Arkk’s extended hand slowly moved over the rest of the orcs. The older orc didn’t move, but the shorter orc flinched back. The leader set his jaw and glowered. The fourth, a bulbous orc even rounder than the Baron, shirked back, using the woman for cover as he cowered. “We didn’t… it wasn’t…”
“We agreed,” the old orc said, looking down at the broken body with a gaze of utter contempt.
After a brief moment of shocked silence from the mob behind him, Arkk heard Hurtt shout out a huzzah! Arkk could feel the pressure on his back. The villagers wanted blood even though it should have been obvious that the other four hadn’t been planning on attacking him like that. If they had been, they all would have attacked at the same time.
“Master.” Vezta used her tendrils to pull herself from the ground at Arkk’s side, an action that made everyone, villager and orc, take a sudden step back. Only Ilya resisted, more used to the servant than the others. “You clearly cannot let these creatures see your back. If I might offer a solution—”
“I know,” Arkk said. “Hire them. They can’t betray me if what you said is true.”
“They can, but you’ll know in advance.”
“Right.”
“In addition, it solves more problems,” she said, speaking softly. “Fortress Al-Mir can sustain any number of creatures, providing everything they need with the proper rooms constructed. There will be no need for them to pillage and raid. It keeps them from raiding your village, or any other. In addition, we gain minions. If we wish to progress with your other goals, minions—”
“Employees, Vezta.”
“Regardless of the word, they will be an asset.”
“You want to hire them?” Ilya hissed, close enough to hear Vezta. “You heard them, they were happy to go on raiding if not for this demon business.”
“I gave my reasons,” Vezta said, stepping aside.
“They’re not good people.”
Arkk held up a hand, locking his eyes on the green-skinned lead orc. “When is this summoning to take place?”
“When the sun is farthest from directly overhead,” he said, no longer willing to play games. “You humans call it the witching hour.”
Glancing to the horizon, Arkk frowned. The sun was starting to set. They had but a few hours.
“Regardless of your decision with the orcs, you must stop this summoning, Master,” Vezta said, voice far more intense than usual. “Demons are the enemy of all.”
“Agreed,” Ilya said, hand tightening around the leather grip of her bow.
“How many orcs and goblins are still present?” Arkk asked of the assembled orcs. “How many are likely to fight with your chief or fight against her if we show up and start attacking? How well-defended is she? Can we kill her from afar—”
The shortest orc started talking, only for the lead orc to snap his hand into a fist in front of her face. “No more answers until you guarantee our safety.”
Someone started to say something behind Arkk, but John snapped his fingers, cutting them off before they could cause a commotion.
Arkk pressed his lips together. He didn’t think he was cut out for this job, but he didn’t have a choice. Reaching his hand into his pocket, Arkk pulled four gold coins from Fortress Al-Mir’s [HEART] chamber in the same way he had moved Ilya’s bow earlier. Vezta had warned him that both that method of moving items, as well as her teleportation circles, would not function at great distances—which she estimated to be limited to about twice the distance from the fortress to the village, about a hundred kilometers, though she hadn’t known the measurement used in the duchy. Still, it worked for now.
“I will hire you,” Arkk said, holding the coins out, three in his palm and one pinched between his thumb and index finger. Paying gold, according to Vezta, was how her former master had most often hired his employees. “You work for me. No more raiding, pillaging, or looting. You do as I say.”
“Work for a human?” The lead orc curled his lips back into a snarl. “You dare—”
Idea popping into Arkk’s head, he held out his left hand. A crystal ball popped into being. The same one he had used to locate his village for Vezta when he first met the servant. He could transport anything that was his to anywhere that was his territory, which his body counted as.
The orcs flinched back at the ball’s appearance, but he simply held it over to his side, offering it to Vezta.
“Find the orc encampment,” he said, looking across the bridge. He spotted no horses. They could have left them behind to appear non-threatening, but more likely, they just didn’t have any. “Search that side of the river. Roughly six hours of walking distance. If you don’t find it, spread your search further. Riding distance in the same timeframe.”
“As you wish,” Vezta said, coiling a tendril around the crystal ball. Holding her hands above it, images started flashing inside the glass.
Leaving that to her, Arkk looked back to the orcs. “You have until she finds your chief,” he said.
“Or what?” the lead orc said, teeth clenched hard enough that Arkk was surprised they hadn’t started cracking.
“Or you will become far less useful,” he said, offering one of the golden coins.
The older orc caught his meaning immediately, followed quickly by the lead orc. He could see it in the way their eyes changed. The shorter orc didn’t take long either, her own eyes widening as she looked to the leader and then back to Arkk. He could see her fingers rubbing together, eyes darting down to the coin in Arkk’s hand.
Arkk wasn’t entirely sure that the rotund orc ever got exactly what Arkk was saying. He had been dripping sweat the entire time, especially after the fifth orc tried his attack. Arkk wondered just what he was doing with the other orcs, looking far more like those that passed through town than a raider. Perhaps he was forced to participate in their group?
When Vezta let out a soft, “Ah!” noise, it was the fat orc that lunged forward, grabbing hold of the coin.
The link formed immediately. Like with Ilya and unlike Vezta, it relayed off the [HEART]. He was now Arkk’s first intentional minion. Employee.
The other three looked at him with a mixture of expressions on their faces. The girl looked surprised while the leader looked like he was about to murder his comrade. The older orc simply sighed, resigned. He was the next to step forward. Then, after a brief hesitation, the girl.
The leader glared at both of them in turn, but the fires of his ire in his eyes died down with each. He was left looking at Arkk, a hefty scowl on his face. “We are not slaves,” he growled, unmoving.
“Do slaves get paid?” Arkk asked, the final coin still held out between his fingers.
Curling his lip, the lead orc swiped the coin from Arkk’s fingers. As the bond settled into place, a look of surprise came over the orc. He looked off into the distance, toward Fortress Al-Mir. For a moment, Arkk thought he noticed the bond forming, but if the orc did, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked down at the coin in his hand. He popped it into his mouth.
Arkk gaped for a moment, thinking he was eating it. He didn’t seem to be chewing or swallowing, however. In short order, the orc spat it back out. “Still cold? And no taste?” Genuine surprise laced his voice. “It’s real?”
His shock prompted all three of the other orcs to give the gold a taste test, though when the larger orc did, he actually bit down. With predictable results. With a slight ‘eep’ of pain, he spat it back out first and began rubbing at his teeth through his cheeks.
Shaking his head in bewilderment, Arkk turned to Vezta. “You found the encampment?”
Vezta’s faint smile turned into a wide grin. “Not yet. I merely decided to encourage their response. We are pressed for time, Master.”
“Right,” Arkk said, a bit of laughter escaping his lips. After a moment, he started laughing with gusto, nervous tension draining with each chuckle. Taking a breath, he nodded a head toward the orcs. “Find out everything you can from them.”
“As you desire.”
Turning fully, Arkk faced the villagers.
He expected to find anger at their vengeance being denied. Instead, he found himself faced with surprise. More eyes were over his shoulders than actually on him. It was only the Abbess and the Baron who weren’t staring. The former was kneeling next to the latter, gently patting his cheeks in an attempt to rouse him.
“Where’d a punk like you get gold from?” Jorgen blurted out.
Hurtt shot him a look. “Same place he got that monster from, idiot.”
“Not important!” Ilya snapped. “We’ve got an orc that just won’t accept no for an answer! Who is with us!” she shouted, raising her bow into the air.
The rallying cry was significantly less enthusiastic than when the cries to murder the orcs had gone out, but everyone looked determined to some degree.
Arkk didn’t know anything about demons and doubted any of them did either, but everyone knew a demon coming after their village would not end well. It might not even be the kind of thing they could run away from.
“The orcs here are not to be harmed,” Arkk said. “They won’t betray us without me knowing about it.” He looked over his shoulder, gaze sweeping over each of them. “And I won’t take kindly to that.”
“How do you know?”
Arkk looked back to the villagers but wasn’t sure who asked. He simply shrugged. “Magic.”
“Oh,” Jorgen said with a grimace. “You’re going to make them explode.”
“I’m not, I…” Arkk pressed his lips together, sighing. “Nothing I’ve done recently has exploded. Nothing since…”
Since binding with the [HEART].
Shaking his head, he looked to the Abbess. “Keena, anything you can provide that would harm a demon or protect us from it would be appreciated. And healing.”
The Abbess, white robes dusty from kneeling next to the Baron, met his eyes for the first time since he returned to the village with Vezta in tow. She only held his gaze for a moment before her eyes dropped down to the ground as she nodded. “Yes,” she said softly. “Of course.”
“Thank you.” He wasn’t sure what problem the Abbess had, but with how much Vezta seemed to dislike the symbols on her habit and on the church itself, he wasn’t all that surprised that the Abbess didn’t like Vezta in turn. If she knew what Vezta was, however, she wasn’t saying.
Still, she would have to help fight a demon. It would be insanity not to. Trusting that, Arkk turned back to the villagers.
“Anyone who wants to go, gather your weapons and horses. We need to move quickly. As soon as we know which direction to head. We’ll plan as we go!”