“There are more coming!” Bog shouted as she slammed the door of the tower shut. “Over the hill!”

Tarn looked out the small window to see several dozen orcs running at the tower, weapons held high over their head. He was used to hearing the blood curdling cry of orcs in battle, but these soldiers ran silently, without an ounce of fire in their eyes.

The sight chilled Tarn, to see them so completely rendered as tools.

“Come on kid!” Jental grabbed Aryo and began pulling him to the door. She looked back at Tarn. “We’ll hold ‘em down there as long as we can. Bar the door, and block it with obstacles. The works.”

“Jen!” Tarn chased after her. “Wait I –“

He stopped. It was the right call, and she was right to make it. If they were to pull this off, they’d likely need everyone else. The stairs were defensible, and Jental and Aryo were good choices to hold them.

“We can do this.” She looked him in the eyes. “You told me to keep everyone alive. This is me, doing that.”

Aryo looked between Tarn and Jental for a moment, then nodded.

“Yeah. She’s right, Tarn. Go take down that song. We can do this.”

“Fine,” Tarn nodded. “Take Lash with you. He can keep you healed. If things get too rough, you fall back up the tower to where we are, understood?”

“Got it boss!” Lash gave Tarn an enthusiastic thumbs up. “Lash keep sharp girl and farm boy safe. No worries!”

There was little time for argument. Gritting his teeth, he turned away and left them to work he trusted them to do. Tarn led the group up the circular stairway. At each level, he resisted the urge to look out the small slit windows that had been cut into the side of the structure. The sounds of combat called to him, but he pushed them away. Lash and the others would hold the entry, that was the fact he had to believe in. If they didn’t, likely the rest of this wouldn’t matter.

The entrance to the second floor was blocked by a heavy, weighted iron door. Grasping the handle, to Tarn’s surprise it opened without issue, though he could tell it had been weighted to slam closed once the door had been released.

He pulled the door open, faced with a mostly empty circular chamber. The only things of note were the next set of stairs on the far wall, and the three dead orcs on the floor. Durmin did say he had ‘cleared the path’, Tarn supposed this may have been part of that.

With Bog close on his heels, he raced to the next set of stairs. Urthin and Isca fell a bit behind, with Urthin stopping to peer out the window slit for a moment, while Isca had checked on the dead orcs.

Confronted with a second heavy door, Tarn pulled it open and pushed through, with Bog practically entering on top of him. He stopped as soon as he entered, as the heavy door slammed back shut behind Bog, clicking and locking.

They were not alone. This room was lightly furnished, with a few heavy wooden tables covered with clay plates and mugs. Across at the other side of the room, a doorway presumably led to the next set of stairs. The only thing blocking them was the largest orc Tarn had ever seen. He dominated the room, glaring hungrily at the two of them as if he had been waiting for this moment for days.

“The chieftain,” Bog whispered from behind him, her voice a mixture of wonder and excitement. He wasn’t sure how Bog could recognize him with such certainty, but her tone left no doubt of her confidence.

Tarn wasn’t sure what he had expected the great orc chieftain to look like, but what was before him sure wasn’t it. He had been hearing about both the military genius and incredible physical prowess of the orc’s ruler all his life, but he had supposed at least some of that was exaggerated.

Looking at the monstrosity that stood in their path, if anything those stories had undersold him.

The chieftain was at least two feet taller than Bog, who herself seemed unusually large for an orc. What could be seen of his clothes was a simple leather shift, muscles bulging out of it in every direction. Legs like stone columns held up a broad torso, massive arms ending in clenched fists. While his age could be seen in the lines on his emerald face, even the sharpened, gold-tipped tusks that emerged from his mouth were impressive.

A gleaming blue gem was embedded in the center of his chest, pulsing like a second heart. A myriad of wires led outward from it, twisting up his body and embedding themselves inside his skull.

The chieftain’s gaze fell upon Tarn and then Bog. His eyes narrowed for a moment as he looked at her, brow furrowed. Tarn reminded himself on some level this might be her father. Maybe there was a chance here, some old memory they could pull back.

“You do not hear the song, my fellow orc.” His voice was deep and slow, like a glacier moving down a mountain. His words were a statement, not a question. “And you, human. You are more than just Realm-borne. You are Lurim-touched. Ixeldan-marked.”

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Ixeldan. That had been the Progenitor’s name for the Arch Mage, removing any question of who the orc leader was in communication with.

His chest rose and fell with his breath, while his jaw clenched. He flexed the muscles in his legs, preparing to act. Everything on the chieftain was in motion except his eyes. They were dull, and unfocused, as if they were looking at an animated corpse.

Then they lit up, golden embers glowing inside them. The light turned to Tarn, focusing upon him. A voice issued forth from the chieftain, a raspy whisper.

“You are gem-touched, sword-stained.” The light inside the chieftain’s eyes dimmed. “You cannot be tolerated.”

This is about to go sideways. Tarn reached inside the interface in his mind, preparing the [Create Still].

The lights in the orc’s eyes fully extinguished, and he charged forward, pulling a pair of blades from his belt. Tarn activated the [Create Still] and waited for the world to freeze in a blur of still-time, expecting the crimson armor to issue forth from the gem and quickly cover him.

His interface instead glared a warning at him in flashing red letters:

//WARNING – STILL-GENERATION BLOCKED BY UNKNOWN ARTIFACT

What?

The oncoming wall of muscle and steel that was the chieftain then slammed into him. He felt a fire of pain across his arm as the orc’s knuckle gauntlets sliced through his leather armor, blood flying forth. Any further thoughts were lost as the pair tumbled backward, slamming into the heavy wooden table behind him.

Tarn’s back cried out as he collided with the table, which groaned under the assault but did not break. He felt the air forced from his lungs, stars flashing across his vision. The chieftain held his long axe over his head with two hands and brought it down violently, aiming for Tarn’s exposed chest.

A pair of green hands caught the axe handle in mid-flight. Bog roared with rage as she and the chieftain wrestled for the weapon. The pair struggled, bodies shaking with effort until the larger orc cracked Bog in the face with his elbow.

Stunned and with blood spurting from her nose, she released the axe and stumbled backward. The chieftain swung his weapon down at Tarn again, who dove completely under the wooden table to avoid it. The blade impacted with the heavy oak, lodging itself in its surface.

Grabbing the table legs for support, Tarn kicked out at the chieftain’s knee with both feet, pushing all of his strength into the blow. He was rewarded with a satisfying crunch, but to his shock, his opponent refused to go down.

Twisting himself and scuttling forward, Tarn shot between the huge orc’s legs and came up behind him. With a leap, he wrapped his arms around the chieftain’s neck and began pulling at the cords leading to the Progenitor’s gem.

A beefy hand reached over Tarn’s head and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. The room became a blur as he was suddenly thrown across the room, landing hard on the stone floor and rolling into the wooden door.

Dazed, Tarn lay there for a moment while his vision spun. He could hear clicking and rattling above, some part of his mind aware that Isca was trying to pick the lock. As his vision cleared, he could see Bog and the chieftain struggling again, now trading blows. The axe lay on the floor discarded, as the pair now pummeled one other, their battle cries echoing through the room.

Ignoring the complaints of his muscles, Tarn attempted to stand but quickly crumpled back to the floor as the walls spun around him. On his hands and knees, he crawled forward until he could reach the handle of the orc’s great battleaxe. Above him, he heard Bog’s shocked grunt as her opponent managed to lock his hands around her throat.

With a grunt, Tarn pulled the heavy weapon off the floor. He felt far too unstable to stand and swing it, but he stretched himself forward and managed to hook the tip of the blade around the chieftain’s ankle. Pushing the last ounces of his strength, he pulled on the weapon handle with all his might.

As the axe clattered to the side, the chieftain let out a surprised cry as he toppled to the ground. Bog was on him in an instant, straddling him. As Tarn struggled forward, Bog pounded her fist into the huge orc’s face again and again, while blood flew from them both.

Tarn managed to reach Bog as she stopped, her chest heaving with exertion. The chieftain’s arms lay lifelessly at his sides, while several of the disconnected cables were strewn around his shattered visage. Bog stumbled off him, her eyes shocked.

Tarn managed to reach her, putting his arms around her shoulders just as the door behind them finally clicked open. Urthin and Isca were inside the room in a blur, with Isca coming to check on them both while Urthin ran to the far door.

A faint vibration ran through the tower along with a distant rumble, but Tarn’s mind was still spinning. Isca began wrapping bandages around Bog’s wounds while encouraging Tarn to lean on her for support.

“This door is locked.” Urthin’s voice was like a steady floor on which Tarn could try to stand. He could feel his thoughts coming back to themselves, pulling away from the dizzying blows he had taken. He sat up a bit straighter.

“Go.” His word was a rasp as he looked at Isca. He swallowed painfully, then felt a bit of relief. “Go – get that next door open. We need to … keep moving.”

“You.” The chieftain’s whisper carried through the small chamber. Tarn turned to see him reaching up with a trembling hand, touching Bog’s face. “You have come back?”

“I – I didn’t…” Bog held the huge orc’s hand as it fell back to the floor. “I mean, I’m not…”

He coughed, sending a fresh trickle of blood running down the side of his mouth. The Progenitor assembly slid off his skull, the hoses trailing a mixture of red and green fluid. His eyes looked past Bog, up at the room’s crumbling ceiling.

“If you are here…” He coughed again, his body trembling. “There is still hope. Find… a way.”

His body convulsed and then lay still. Bog sat over him, still holding his now lifeless land. She looked over at Tarn, tears in her confused, questioning eyes as she cradled the body of the man she had killed.

“Father?” Her voice had a pain Tarn recognized, one of a child with no real memory of their parent. Even as the call to act burned through him like a wildfire, he placed one arm around her shoulder and felt her strong bulk lean into him for support.

He had no idea what this unmoving form might have meant to Bog in the past, and he knew neither did she. But his death was a closing of a door, another sealing away of her memories and her days as another person. Another life taken by the Progenitors.

Even with madness unfolding all around them, the world deserved to give Bog a heartbeat to process through that, and Tarn would make sure she got it.