The six were seated around a table in Verist's room and had just finished catching each other up on the events of their travels. Merdon and Sarel had gone last, with the knight depositing the fragments of his enchanted shield on the table for Verist to examine. The majority of them had shown sympathy for Merdon's near death at the hands of Grot, and the witch seemed displeased with the loss of the magic shield. Red, however, was distant about the whole thing, in an angry sort of way. The knight recognized that Sarel was also apart, but a more melancholic distance. She was upset about her defeat and no amount of talking would have overcome that. She'd been silent for most of the conversation, barely emoting, rarely even nodding. It was hard to tell if she was even paying attention.
Red broke their discussion by slamming a fist on the table, startling Verist and almost making her drop the sliver of shield in her hand. “Does no one care about the fact we're trapped here?” she shouted, looking at them with a scowl.
“It's a simple matter to teleport away from the tower,” Verist said with a roll of her eyes. “Dramatic kobold.”
The scaly mage ground her teeth and retorted, “I can teleport, you can teleport us, what if you decide not to?”
Skyeyes sighed, but Merdon, confused, asked, “Why would she refuse to teleport us?”
“Of course you wouldn't get it,” Red said with serious condescension.
The priest spoke up in defense of Merdon, raising his voice to a shocking degree. “That's enough!” he told Red. “We don't need to be arguing among ourselves right now. The Eyes are onto our plans. We cannot afford to break down before the rebellion has even gotten off the ground.”
“Please,” Red scoffed. “The fact they've caught onto us is exactly why we need a new plan. They'll see us coming a mile away.”
“If we wait, the Eyes will do something worse,” Merdon said in disagreement. “They could declare war on the orcs and wipe out any hope of back up we have. Losing the element of surprise doesn't mean you go back into hiding.”
Verist nodded, “We cannot afford to wait any longer now that Avant's assassins have struck a group they're supposed to have a truce with. The war is coming, with us or without. The only question to be asked, Red, is whether you join in and seek freedom, or stand to the side and let a flip of the coin decide who wins.”
“It won't be a coin flip,” Merdon said sourly. “The orcs are already in disarray, and they were reluctant to agree to any form of surprise attack. They wanted to simply march out in numbers, just like before.” Like the war they had lost.
“Stupid,” Verist muttered. “Well, the good news is that I might be able to do something for your shield, but I'll need to do some research first.”
Skyeyes sighed and asked, “What do we do in the meantime? Just wait?”
“No,” Merdon told him. “We need to go check on the orcs. Grot is still alive and it's possible the other chiefs have arrived since I left. We need to convince them to do this correctly, not rush into a head-on war.”
Red shouted and jumped off her chair, kicking it over. “So the witch we were fighting not half a year ago teleports us to a place where our bodies would never be recovered, completely at her mercy, and you're all still stuck on this rebellion thing?” she yelled.
Sarel stood on her own seat and shouted back, stunning the other three, “If all you can do is nitpick and whine, maybe you should leave!”
The red-scaled kobold froze with her mouth agape, processing what the blue one had said. Skyeyes had argued with her, debated her, but not outright dismissed her. Sarel, on the other hand, looked deeply upset.
The thief looked at Merdon, and then to Skyeyes. “My verakt is right. The orcs were agreeing to help us, we must see their aid is secured first and foremost. We can use them to leverage the kobold villages to action.” She then glared at Red and added, “Having a neutral location that our enemies cannot spy on or reach will help.”
Verist smiled and said, “I thought precisely the same thing.”
Red puffed up a little and then stormed off, slamming the door loudly behind her. Skyeyes bit his lip, then quietly slid out of his seat to follow her. As they left, Merdon frowned and looked at Thickhide, the other quiet kobold in the room, to ask what exactly the problem was. Clearly something had been left out of the story of their trip.
Skyeyes was busy chasing after Red and, even if he had stayed around, it wouldn't have been in him to explain Red's actions to others. The mage was gone, being she was running and he didn't start until after leaving Verist's room. He stood on the floor below the top of the tower and listened, expecting to hear her running somewhere. Instead, Skyeyes flinched at the cacophony of expletives and splintering from a room down the hall. With a frown, the priest proceeded to the room and cracked open the door to peek inside before confronting her.
All of the furniture in the room was in pieces on the floor, amassed in a large heap that Red was setting ablaze. Skyeyes watched as she hurled a fireball at the center of the wood and stared at the flames dancing on the fragments of chairs, a table, and what looked to be a bookcase. With the fire raging, Red let out a frustrated yell and kicked a rug onto the flames as well before dropping to the floor and panting to catch her breath. Timidly, Skyeyes stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
“Red,” he said softly, causing the mage to look back at him with a growl, “we should talk.”
“There's nothing to talk about!” she shouted, jumping up and lobbing another fireball at the already burning wreckage.
Skyeyes crossed his arms and pointed out, “You've set an entire room on fire. How is this not something to discuss?”
She turned and faced Skyeyes with a snarl. “Because you're just going to say some stupid pragmatic shit about humans that I'm not going to listen to, then we're going to brush past each other and sleep in different beds, again,” the mage raged.
Skyeyes made a face of debate before telling Red, “You realize that pragmatic means what I say is based on facts, not feelings and speculation?”
Red groaned and dragged her hands down her face. “That is your problem, Shistra. You always have to be correct, you are embarrassed to be wrong, even if it means ignoring the opinions of those around you.”
“Is there a problem with being right?” he asked, stepping forward. “About setting aside my feelings for simple truth?”
“There is when your truth is temporary and fleeting! The humans are nice, for now, but what about the future? What guarantee do we have that Verist isn't planning something? None. We're just supposed to trust her, and how is trusting her based in facts, because the last time I checked she tried to kill Merdon and enslave us.” Red panted and huffed from all her yelling, but Skyeyes seemed thoughtful.
“You're right,” he admitted, causing the mage to blink in surprise. “She did some very bad things, and I don't like the fact we have to rely on her any more than you or Sarel do. However,” he continued, holding up a hand, “you simply won't accept the help at all. Tell me, Skravna, do you wish to end up a slave again, or would you rather work with the humans to be free? There is no in-between here. Without Verist's tower and magical prowess we could never hope to assault Ardmach, and without Merdon to help organize the kobolds and orcs together we would take years amassing support for this.”
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“I hate it,” Red said, looking at the ground. “I hate that we can't do this ourselves.”
Skyeyes sighed softly, glad she had stopped yelling. “I can understand that,” he told her. “But kobolds will not be able to go into hiding after this. Our cities will not be hidden in forests, and there are those outside of Avant that want worse for us.” Rastar didn't allow any kind of free kobold, and the elves killed them as if they were goblins. They would have to seek refuge to build a society with someone, somewhere.
“Verist stole my memories,” Red said, looking up at Skyeyes. “She took the last things of my home that I had, and I'm just supposed to sit there and let her plan our future?”
“We will plan our future,” the priest told her. “When this is over the kobolds will be free, or we will be dead. Verist will have no say over us after that. Nor will Merdon, if that so concerns you.” He felt her anger ran deeper than that, she was cooling, but still angry inside.
After a time she asked, “So we check on the orcs? Then what?”
Skyeyes smiled. “We bring them here, and then we find the kobolds that will listen to us again. With these orcs at our side, the kobolds will find their bravery like you wanted them to.”
“And then we fight?” she confirmed.
The white-scaled kobold nodded. “And then we fight, and the corrupt humans will be dragged into the light as the monsters they have always been.”
Red smirked and looked back at the still-smoldering ruins of the furniture. “I'll provide the torch.”
With Verist doing research, Red and Skyeyes dealing with each other, and Sarel off taking a bath, Merdon decided to talk to Thickhide. He had heard about what the green kobold had gone through and figured it was best to talk about it. The human was responsible for him after all. He'd trained the kobold, taught him every skill he could in the short time they had together, but nothing prepared him for that fight. It was obvious in the way his room looked when Merdon walked in. Thickhide's armor had a very thin layer of dust, settled from the days of rest. Chances were good, Merdon suspected, that he hadn't bothered training much after either. That was normal. It took the kobold a minute to realize Merdon had entered, but when he did, Thickhide sat up and smiled at him.
Merdon returned the look and had a seat on a chair that was paired with a desk in the room, turning it the chair about to face Thickhide. “How are you feeling?” he asked first, testing the waters.
“I'm okay,” Thickhide said, his smile fading. “Skyeyes talked to me.”
The knight nodded. “That's good. Priests normally deal with these things, but they're also not really warriors. They don't sit in the middle of it like we do.” Thickhide had killed now, they were equals as far as Merdon was concerned. He wasn't a novice anymore, even if he was new.
Thickhide nodded back and looked at his armor. “It was easy to do,” he said, recalling his talk with Skyeyes. “Humans are kind of easy to kill.”
“A curse for sure,” Merdon said. “But that's not what matters. The mind can break as easily as the body. I'm worried about that. Kobolds might be physically tougher, but they aren't so mentally. In our heads, we're all about the same, in my experience.” He'd learned a lot about that in the orc lands.
The green-scaled kobold paused and thought about that before replying. “I did what I had to,” he said at last. “They were bad people.”
“That's not a good way to think about it,” Merdon told him, confusing Thickhide.
“I thought slavers were bad.”
“They are,” Merdon admitted, “but there's more to it than their jobs. They're people with families, friends, and the people in charge of them are lying to them. Some of them don't care, it's true, but there are those that enslave kobolds because they don't know what else they can do.” He stopped and looked at the ground. His words rang true within him, no matter how it made him feel. “You did what you had to, and you should keep that in mind, but you should realize that our enemies today could be friends tomorrow. Don't judge them all as completely evil so quickly.”
Thickhide tried to process that and looked back at his armor. “It's hard being a knight.”
Merdon chuckled at that. “Yes, it is. This world isn't as black and white as Avant makes it out to be, we have to be careful not to fall into the reverse.” Part of their plan leaned on humans from Avant joining in after learning about the Eyes of Ethral's true motives.
“I guess … I need to train harder then,” Thickhide said, standing up and walking over to his armor.
Merdon smiled and stepped over to the kobold to put his hand on his shoulder. “You won't be alone,” the human assured him. “We've all got training to do.”
After saying goodbye to Thickhide, Merdon went to his room and started packing his things. The orcs were still on his mind, and he was certain they were thinking about him as well. It was most likely he was the current suspect in the murders of the clan chiefs, and with the other chiefs due to arrive any time after that incident the knight was doubly sure they wanted his head on a pike. He just had to hope Grot was giving them his side of the story until he could make it back. Assuming the other chiefs didn't kill Grot as an accomplice. There were risks all over with him having left right after, but he had to. Grot just had to convince the other chiefs that it was necessary and not just him fleeing. That was a hard sell, which made it imperative he returned to the orcs' capital immediately.
Sarel seemed to have her doubts when she walked in and caught him packing, her mouth hung open in surprise. She didn't argue with him, however. As a thief, she knew the troubles he was going to face going back to the orcs' land. Knowing Merdon, she was also aware that he wouldn't run from those accusations, especially when he knew the real culprit and the problems that would bring on the orcs. The blue kobold sighed and gathered her own things, to Merdon's shock.
“You don't have to go,” he told her. “I know you're not feeling too go-.”
“I'm going,” she cut him off, looking back at him with a defiant slap of her tail against the ground. “You're not going to throw yourself onto the executioner's block without me there to break you out.”
Merdon wanted to argue with her but found himself chuckling at the assertion instead. He should have known better than to insist they split up again. It didn't take them long to gather their things after that. They had only stopped in for a couple of days, it wasn't like their packs were scattered to every corner of the room.
When they arrived at the top of the tower to tell Verist of their departure, however, they found more luggage than they expected. Skyeyes, Red, and Thickhide were sitting about, bags packed, waiting. Red looked at the pair and sighed out, “Finally, we can go.”
“Where?” Merdon asked, confused as his eyes slowly drifted over the three prepared kobolds.
“To visit the orcs,” Skyeyes said with a smile, getting out of his seat and picking up his pack. “We have to convince them of things ourselves.”
Thickhide got up as well, his armor clanging as he did. “Plus, you said there were free kobolds there. We have to talk them into joining us too,” he added.
Verist stepped over, humming with a book in her hand. “I can send you all, that way you still have a token to get back.”
Merdon looked at them all and sighed. “All right, but be warned, we didn't exactly leave on the best note.”
“Duh,” Red said flatly, standing up and getting next to the others. “You vanished into thin air, covered in blood and surrounded by orc corpses. We're going to be lucky if they don't put an arrow between your eyes when we arrive.”
Sarel scoffed. “That's stupid. Orcs don't use bows. They aren't intimidating enough,” she told Red.
The mage shrugged and replied, “An ax then, whatever. Merdon is going to need our help.”
Verist groaned and slammed her book down. “You all talk too much!” she shouted and readied the spell in a snap of her fingers. Merdon wished she'd taken another minute because suddenly dropping into the middle of the orcs' stronghold did not agree with his stomach.
He looked around and stood up, sword at the ready, but he didn't see anyone. The city was empty, which put everyone else on guard, including Thickhide. Sarel took the lead, with Skyeyes in the back, and Red and Thickhide at the sides, all surrounding Merdon. It was the middle of the day and not a soul was in sight. Merdon scanned the area and found no sign of battle, no blood, no bodies, no burns, no weapons, it was like everyone left on their own. Which didn't make sense.
“Where the hell is everyone?” Red muttered as the group started to move down the street in formation at a turtle's pace.
Sarel shook her head. “I don't know. Maybe once the Eyes attacked they abandoned the city?” she proposed.
“No,” Merdon disagreed, “they spent too long on this place to just uproot and move. Something's going on.”
Their questions were answered when Shade came sprinting down the street towards them, which got Sarel to loosen up. “Shade!” she yelled. “Where are the orcs?”
“They're in the arena,” she said with a scowl directed at Merdon. “Grot is performing the trial by combat on behalf of the Whisperer. He will face off against the remaining orc chiefs in simultaneous combat, by himself.”
Merdon paled and put his sword away. “We have to stop them,” he said in a panic, starting to sprint.
Shade yelled after him, stopping him dead in his tracks. “You can't, not anymore.” When Merdon turned around she finished, “The trial has started already, no one can interfere.”
“Not even the person that should actually be in there?” Merdon said incredulously.
Shade shook her head. “Either my verakt survives and clears your name, or you'll both be dead by sunset.”