When they returned to Shad's camp other orcs wooed with surprise. What intrigued them was the pile of loot. Zona was the first to start looking through them but others just joined. Shad said "If you need anything from the pile you can take it. But before you laid your hands on my loot you should have taken my permission.

Zona said " I was just looking to them sarge, I had no intention of taking anything but very generous of you. He just takes leather bracers from the pile. Others join in.

While they are looting the loot a human girl piggybacking a small boy appeared. She cried "He wasn't lying."

Shad looked at her while his team drawing their weapons Shad said "Talk kid, why the fuck you are in the middle of the forest?" Although Shad's camp was rather close to the outskirts of the forest it was still extremely dangerous to any tierless human to come there.

She said "A guy called Terry send me. He is captive at the river dock. I think he pissed off the river dogs gang. He said to me if I bring you this note you will heal my brother and give me twenty silvers." Shad knew two human languages, the northern common the humans he knew speak, and something called southern common. Also, he knew goblin and how to speak and write in orcish. But he didn't know how to read in any of the human languages.

He turned to his troop, the orcs obviously spoke in orcish among themselves. "Any of you, know to read human?" One of the three shamans in the troop some guy called Arran spoke up "I killed a human herbalist at the edge of the forest and learned a lot from her notes. I know how to read human." Arran took the note and read it and translated it to the orcish. "I presume you had a spy inside and that's why you been able to kill all these humans and have all this loot sarge." Shad nodded.

Arran said "Your spy is rather low even for a human. He says in this note I am exactly translating "Sorry Shad my man, I was going to join the adventurer guild but you know, the thugs they force me to sell my stuff and gamble again. Believe me. I didn't have any intention of breaking my promise and as soon as you free me I will join the adventurers guild and start to feed you information.

The girl knows where I got kept. I am sure with your sneaking skill you easily be able to rescue me. After saving me you just get rid of this slum trash. She has no one to ask after her."

The girl looked at Shad expecting "Did he write, he said he wrote to you to heal my brother and give me twenty silver." Shad turned Gorg and said in human "Look at the child, can you heal him." Gorg got to the child while grumbling in orcish "I want to kill humans not heal them." He got the child from the 12-year-old girl. The child was about five and he was very sick.

Gorg spoke in human "I can heal him with healing force for now but that won't be permanent." Shad looked at Arran, he said: "Ok boss, let me look at him." He put his hand on the boy's forehead. The shamans had a skill for feeling sickness, he said "He has nothing important, I have a herbal mix which can fix his sickness permanently. Truth to be told according to herbalist notebook that is a rather common mix and cheap too.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Humans are truly too cruel to each other for not giving this kid this drug. Arran used his healing magic on the kid which turned his face's painful expression into a relieved one. And started to speak in human, gave the girl a small pouch. "You must feed your brother well, with meat and fruits. And give him from this mix after breakfast and dinner mixing with water. Do you understand me?" Girl nodded.

I think in a week your brother will be better. She nodded and got to the Shad and opened her hand. Shad reached his coin purse, he had around 50 silver from his first adventurer team there. And counted 20 at the girl's hand. She said, "When we are going?"

Shad looked at his troop and said "Guys what you want to do, should I go after Terry or should I find a new spy?" Zona said "Boss I don't know much about humans but betraying one's species shouldn't be that common of a trait. Even though I had great perception I only noticed one out of every twenty times the human teams get in my zone only reason I notice they were in when they are long gone is because of their tracks. Now our zone is 12 times bigger and not all of us are high perception people. So having a spy would give us a great upper hand. We should save him.

Shad said "Zona you and me, other than us two who has stealth and perception skill? A skinny orc youngling appeared "How easily you forget me, Shad? We were trained by Sarchi together, by the way, my name is Darr." Shad smiled "Nice to finally learn your name, Darr. Zona looked at Shad "two out of three, you guys are lucky, from my class of six only I had been able to survive. And we didn't listen to our master, one night we each exchanged our names. Now I have to live with their names and faces in my mind."

Shad said to the girl "Three of us will go after you, I want you to return to Setburg away from main routes. Shad turned to Zona "Zona is that my bow on your back?" Zona said, "You are an assassin why you need a bow, you even know how to use it?" Shad said, "Yes I know, and before you say it I know because that is not my class's weapon I know I can't get the power moves for it in normal ways too." Zona gave the bow and quiver back to the Shad."

Shad made a simple map of every village they pass by. When they reached Setburg he saw what he was against. Setburg was a simple town probably around 15.000 population. It had short stone walls, had a wooden dock out of the walls. For some reason, the walls did not include the river. The river was completely out of the town.

Around the dock, there were big slums. When they reach the town Shad said his two followers to wait. And went silently after the girl. He wore his cloak on his head.

With the poor girl on his front and him on the back, they looked like a couple of poor street urchins. The girl dropped his brother to some other street child a boy bigger than her.

They come near a wooden building near the river. She said "This is the river dogs gang den. Then she showed a window, "This Terry guy gave me the note from there. Shad said "Thanks, your job is ower, you can go but remember, you should never talk about what happened and never try to come near us again. Other orcs will not hesitate to kill you and there are many dangers in the forest." The girl nodded. "Don't worry I am not dumb. I won't go near that forest again. My elder sister was a ranger, one of the best. One day she got that damn forest and never came out.

After that, we were thrown out of our home by the landlady and since that day we living in the streets." Shad knew from inside the girl's sister was that Leah girl he killed and she was there because of him. He simply didn't care.

The only reason the girl was still living was to show Terry, he kept his promises. Shad didn't want to make Terry afraid for his life. He wanted to make him believe he was somehow honorable towards his allies.