We were left alone in the vast hall, the orks on the other side of the ravine retired, and locked the door behind themselves.

“What do we do now?” I asked Beldrak, desperately.

“What we should have done in the first place. We will examine our situation with a cool head again. Before anyone crosses a ravine in haste.”

“All right, all right, you were right. How does a cool head see our situation then?”

“I have a question worth ten-thousand gold. How do the archers get into their corridors behind the arrow-slits?”

“Before we opened the gate, I have assumed there would be doors leading left and right from this room. As there are no such doors, the shooting corridors must be connected to the interior of the fortress.”

“Not necessarily,” said Beldrak. “Look at the wall closer.”

I walked to the wall on the right.

“There are marks here!” I exclaimed. “Small crevices...”

“Not so loud! They probably understand Common.”

“If there is a door,” I whispered, “why didn't they flank us?”

“They were confident that we would have to retire. And then we have to run the gauntlet again in the hail of their arrows. That is, if we weren't perceptive enough to notice a secret entrance.”

“How many spells do you have left in you?”

“One maybe, after that only the lesser ones.”

“All right.” I looked at the wall again. “I think the door will open if I push this bulge here.”

“I am ready as ever.”

I pushed, the door sprang open, and we were looking right into the surprised face of an ork. No doubt, he was trying to hear what we were talking about, and discern our meaning. He died instead, Shatterspike opened him from groin to throat. There were three other orks on this corridor, all at arrow-slits, ready to unleash a barrage of projectiles if we showed ourselves again in front of the fort. Instead we appeared howling on their flank. One of the orks brought his bow to bear on us, but he panicked, and let the arrow fly too early. The point drove through the neck of another archer. The ork went down, thrashing on the ground in his own blood, and Beldrak put the two remaining ones to sleep.

Our situation was precarious enough without prisoners making mischief, so I slit the throat of the sleeping greenskins, then closed the door behind us, and started to raise a barricade before it.

“There is at least one archer on the corridor on the left,” mused Beldrak. “But even if there are two, they are the last living orks on this side of the ravine.”

“We will have to kill them too sooner or later.”

“But you figured we should have a rest before that, eh?”

“You know me too well.”

There was nothing to block the arrow-slits with, so I sat down in a corner which was more less in cover from all the holes, then took off my mail to count my wounds.

“I don't have any bleeding wound this time!” I exclaimed in jubilation.

“Quite an achievement,” answered Beldrak dryly. “But also very lucky, considering Jim is not here to heal you up. How many bruises?”

“I never count those,” I laughed. “Too many of them, and I get the most from sparring with Jim.”

Trueanvil munched on hardtack, I ate the sandwich one of the orks packed for himself.

“Orks are much cleaner than goblins,” I remarked. “And their food is suitable for humans.”

“Not really, no,” answered Trueanvil. “I mean yes, they are cleaner, but their cuisine is equally dangerous. There are some poisons which they can ingest without trouble, and they use those as spices.” I was just about to bite into the sandwich again, but this made me stop.

“Don't worry, I doubt this lot has any spices at all. And if they do, they won't waste it on sandwiches.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Reassuring.” I decided that hardtack was a suitable meal after all, and threw the rest of the sandwich out an arrow-slit.

“Strange things, poisons,” Beldrak continued with his musings, as if I had not spoken. “Greenskins die from tea, did you know that? Not from the linden tea I make, but from real tea, made from tea leaves. And also from coffee. Humans, elves and dwarves drink those without problem, but give it to an ork or a goblin, and they are dead in an hour.”

Coffee... that's the awfully bitter black stuff you drank once in Tsepjú-Upaksoráv, right? And tea leaves... Have I ever seen those? I don't think so. Why does this world have so many unremarkable beverages?!

But loudly, I only said:

“Fascinating. But hardly practical.”

Beldrak laughed.

“I suppose not. Although we could try, if I had some tea leaves.”

We rested for an hour after the exertion of the fight. Beldrak looked around, and found another secret door that did connect the corridor to the interior of the fortress, but it seemed the orks did not know about it.

“They have been living here for two hundred years, and they did not find it?” I asked incredulously.

“It is not easy to discover for someone who is not a dwarf. Even I, who knew what to look for, had trouble with finding it. Should I open it?”

“First we have to clean up on this side of the ravine,” I warned.

There was only one ork in the other corridor. He did not flee, he prepared for us. He raised a barricade behind his secret door, much like I did, and when I opened, he fired at me at once.

If Beldrak wasn't there the ork would have made a pincushion of me while I was trying to clean away the barricade, but the wizard used his motes of fire with his usual efficacy, and this ork bit the dust too.

“It will be a bother to clean up.”

“We can do that after we rescued Jim.”

We did not have two thousand gold for ransom, so we had no other chance than freeing our comrade by the force of our arms.

“Will you be alright without magic?”

“Now that I have rested, I might squeeze out one or two more bigger spells. If that's not enough, we will have to retreat.”

“If we count our ambushers, we have already disposed of more than twenty orks. How many could be remaining?”

“That big brute alone would be quite troublesome to handle without Jim and my magic. We will go in silently and hope that no one will notice us. They are probably on the watch in case we try to cross the ravine, but they won't expect us coming from the other direction.”

We went through the secret door to the interior of the fortress. Even though we were in enemy territory now, even though Jim was a prisoner, and even though Beldrak was out of magic, I felt liberated. The fight yesterday improved my mood and gave me a break from depression, but the bloodshed today was even better. I killed and killed again, and my enemies couldn't even draw my blood. I knew with my head that I was a misstep away from death, that I could have been easily the prisoner in place of Jim. But I still didn't feel worried. I was giddy, crisp and invincible.

The first room was a large saloon where cots were hanging, and chests stood full of clothes and other belongings. Undoubtedly this was the room where the ordinary ork soldiers slept, but luckily none of them was present at the moment. Many would never be again.

Next was a long corridor, with doors and other corridors opening from it.

“Do you think it's behind a door?” I whispered to Beldrak.

“None of these looks like an entrance leading into a prison,” he scratched his head.

We left doors and side-corridors behind, following the intuition of Trueanvil that was borne of his familiarity with dwarven architecture. We arrived now to a part where the walls of the corridors were raw, unchiselled rock. These paths were twisting and twirling, leading up and down, joining and separating again for no reason. Beldrak was still confident in our direction. He let me go forward as I had better armour, but he was the one leading us. We walked in silence for a quarter of an hour at least. Then I stopped before a corner.

“I think we have company,” I whispered to him. As orks saw in the dark just as well as Beldrak, I hooded my lantern, and it gave just enough light for me not to stumble over my own leg. Otherwise I could have easily given away our presence, even using this much light made Beldrak uneasy. But my hearing stayed sharp as ever, and now I heard orks conversing in their language.

“How many do you reckon?” asked the wizard.

“Three or four.”

“We are close. These might very well be the prison guards.”

“Then do your coolheaded examination of the situation, and tell me your plan.”

“I am afraid the one spell I might squeeze out of myself would be inadequate to deal with three orks at once. We will have to adopt your reckless methods this time.”

That was just as well with me. I lit two torches, chucked them over the corner, and followed in their trail with a battle-cry. There were three orks in the room, all unarmoured, their axes leaning to the wall. The first one just stood up and stared at me with round eyes as I gutted him. His two comrades sprang to their weapons, but Beldrak put one of them to sleep, and then we cornered and killed the one remaining greenskin with ease.

They were indeed guarding the prison. There were three people inside, Jim and two humans. The tiefling was already awake, and he even healed up himself.

“They took my armour and equipment, but they didn't try stopping me from using my magic,” ha said wondering. “In a day or two, I would have tried to escape even if you didn't come for me.”

“They must not have experience in restraining magic users.”

“There was some talk and arguing between them when I woke up. Ulf and Gromk here,” he gestured towards the two humans, “understand a little of the Ork language. They said the guards were arguing about calling someone called François. They said he will 'put me alright'.”

“Some ork shaman probably. Be grateful that he did not come in time.”

“Speaking of which,” I interjected, “it is high time we left.”