They came ashore on the far side of the world in the lee of a tall turret of mortared stone. It rose from the rocky peninsula in the way preferred by humans. Like a pronouncement. Like the only way to occupy a place is to show everyone around that its yours and this is how and why. They'd even named it Here First.

The [armiger]'s fleet waited at anchor a little farther asea than their two masted packet. Daraway paid off its captain. Khaz looked back at the ship.

"That'll be the last time I fool with one of those rotten bellied beasts," he said. "Nothin tween you and drownin but toothpicks and tar. How'd yer uncle stand it?"

Mym was looking up at the tower. "Don't know. Da only read the happy bits of his letters. Then they stopped comin."

"Never again."

As the [captain] took Daraway's coins he said, "Y'all are gonna have to unless y'all plan on staying here."

Khaz shook his head. "Said the owl te the mouse. I'll swim thank ye."

"Ye can't even swim from one side of the flume to the other," said Mym.

"Maybe not, but I'm damned good at sinkin and I can hold my nose just fine. I'll walk back."

She laughed, but she too was glad to be off of the packet. Aboard never felt right. Abovedecks she felt like all the crew stared at her and when she went below nothing was ever as she had left it. The heaving and pitching constantly shifted her powderhorn and lead and cartridge paper, and her needle and heavy canvas thread, and the twisted copper pins she wound into her hair each morning. Sometimes she'd find them halfway down the deck. She had lost her pencil and sketchbook altogether.

And there were no stones asea.

She knelt and ran her fingers over the stones on which they stood. Smooth and rounded by a hundred thousand years of the sea's caress, clacking together like rockfall whenever it raked over them. She [whispered] her thanks and [heard] their welcome. Beside her Khaz did the same.

Afterward Khaz thrust his beard toward the place where the road ran under the turret. "Yer roadway here is crooked. And there. Risin and sinkin like the ground's subsidin."

Daraway tied her purse and looped it under her cloak. "That's what happens when a folk would rather bury the truth than confront it."

"Aye?" he said. "What do ye mean?"

"The road rises where they paved over the bodies of ten thousand orcs. It sinks now that their flesh has fallen to dust."

His brow rose an inch. "Shit."

"Orcs were here?" said Mym.

"Of course. They're endemic here and in other places inland and farther north. When king's men first landed and built this fortification many of their bands unified to assail it. Others defended it."

Mym stopped walking. "Wait. Orcs fought for yer king?"

"Not mine. My great, great, great grandmother's."

Mym looked again at the tower's top where now some king's men watched them. Their silver helms and silver tipped spears glinted in the sun between the battlements. "I had no idea."

"Because none speak of it. Yet the history is all around us all the time. It is written on the land as it is here in the road or in the camps back home. But remembering means admitting the great shame. It is easier to hate others than hate yourself, so that is what most people do."

Khaz knelt and laid his palm against the pavers. "Ye just tossed em down and paved right over em?"

"They lay where they died. Piled so high the tower's defenders could walk from the turret to the shore without touching the ground. Only after all their lands had emptied did the orcs cease their assault. It's said the sky wept for its fallen children for a hundred days and the rain set their bodies rotting. After the sun came out the stink was so thick you could walk on top of it all the way to the old world. The ten thousand were too waterlogged to burn so the soldiers just laid a new road right over them. The dwarves went home, the humans settled and saved the land, the orcs who'd defended them were shipped across the sea for the priests to redeem. And to fight the king's other wars, of course."

"Would that they killed em all," said Mym.

Daraway looked sidelong at her. "They never needed to. The things that make orcs orcs are not multiplying or great works of mind and art, but fatalism and guts and bitter ends. They made good warriors and that got them killed."

"Not all of em."

"Maybe not, but those who remain dwindle. They dwindled for generations amid the king's conscripts and until last month in the armiger's camps. I'm fairly certain they'll go right on dwindling once they see what he's done to their homeland."

Mym adjusted her pack across her back. "Sounds like justice served te me."

Daraway started up the uneven road. "Keep up. The armiger won't be far."

Khaz looked at Mym. "Ye feelin alright?"

"Fine."

He frowned but said no more.

The woman's long legs and lighter pack carried her ahead of the dwarves. She stopped once under a sunworn canvas tarp drawn across wooden poles. She bartered with its [proprietor] for wrapped sausages and several bulbous pink fruits Mym'd never seen. Then they left the tower and the clusters of stone houses and careless gardens behind.

Beyond Here First and its tall tower the land turned rough and the air hot. They crossed under low rolling clouds and around water standing in pools thick with green algae. Their route followed an overgrown double track of ruts cut down to the bedrock that meandered between the pools. Mosquitos circled them and broke their noses against the dwarves so they tried the woman's softer skin and one by one streaked off her winking like fireflies and falling to the ground like dying sparks. Rubus grew thick along either side and its curling and wrapping branches were all browsed to their thorns by the [armiger]'s stock. Here and there jack holes ran into the hedges but they never saw a rabbit.

After five miles Khaz stopped for relief. He turned into the foliage and looked out over the pools and back the way they'd come.

Mym heard him say, "We're bein followed."

She said, "Aye. Just one. Been a few turns back for a few turns now. Don't go lookin, Dara. Just keep on."

"You should've said something," said Daraway.

Khaz hopped after as he buttoned his trousers then caught up to the others.

"We didn't pass him on the road," said Mym. "Nowhere for lyin along but these thickets."

"Probably comin from the landin."

"Ye want te wait?"

"Rather him come on in daytime."

She halted and dropped her pack. "Aye. Dara let me have a look at one of those sausages."

The sun crawled overhead. They baked in the muggy heat.

"Just about feels like the forge," said Khaz.

"With nobody billowin."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Aye. Like the inside of me drawers."

After a sausage and half of a second Khaz said, "He stopped. Just went into some bushes."

"Probably seen us waitin. Ye want te go back te him?"

"We're losin day."

"That a yes or a no?"

"I said before that I don't want him comin up on us in the dark. Isn't nowhere te step off te get behind him."

"We can outpace him."

Daraway said, "Excuse me little friends. If you want to walk all night you can go right ahead, but you'll be two not three for I do not have soles of stone."

Khaz eyed her stout shoes. "Ye always were full of shit."

Daraway smiled at him. "But I feel so faint master Khaz. Won't you carry me? It must be this air, this heat."

"Heat? Shit. Ye were born in a crucible."

Mym turned and hollered, "Come on out of there. We see ye."

Two hundred yards back a thicket shook.

"Come on. We got places te be."

The thicket shook again and a child crawled up onto the road.

"Hell Mym. It's just a wee girl."

The girl had green leaves stuck in her hair and blackberry bits smeared in the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were dark and her hair unkempt and she wore a tattering poncho over holed trousers. She came up slowly at first then took a big breath and came all at once and didn't stop until she stood an arm's length from Mym.

"What're ye doin followin us? Don't ye know how that looks? Where's yer ma?"

"Don't got no ma."

"Well I'm sorry te hear it, but we're hard pressed te get where we're goin and don't have time or patience te be playin whatever game yer at."

"Y'all don't seem hard pressed."

"Well we are."

"Whatever." The girl stiffened her mouth and turned her face up to theirs though they nearly stood the same height. "Look, I ain't playing no game. I just wanted to tell y'all that y'all are being followed."

"Aye, we marked ye miles ago."

"Not me. There's a man."

"There wasn't anyone between us and ye."

"There was. I saw him myself. A skinny man, all done up in a suit like he was going to some dance or something."

"There wasn't any man."

"There was."

"Ye believe this?"

"No," said Khaz.

"But there was. His skin was all weird and his hair all growned long like a lady's."

"Ye don't have te worry bout no weird men so long as Khaz o Naz is nearby."

Mym looked at Khaz then at the girl. "Listen lil girl, ye know where this road goes?"

"Yeah."

"Ye saw who came along it yesterday?"

"Yeah they was hard to miss."

"We can't take care of ye. We aren't yer parents and we aren't goin anywhere ye want te be."

"I ain't askin to be tookin care of."

"Good."

Mym turned to Khaz and jerked her head. They started walking. The girl walked with them.

"What're y'all called?"

"Dwarves," said Khaz.

"I knowed that. I seen dwarves before."

"Sure ye have," said Mym.

"All the time."

"Sure."

"So what do y'all call each other?"

"Dwarves," said Khaz.

Daraway said, "The grumpy one's Mym and the other one's Khaz."

"Both seem pretty grumpy to me lady."

"I'm Daraway. What's your name, child?"

"Cousins."

"Not much of a name," said Khaz.

"Khaz ain't neither."

"Think it's time ye went on home," he said.

"Let her come along," said Mym. "We can do like we did with the last one."

"Oy that's an idea. Think she'll fry up?"

"Aye."

"Not much fat on her."

"We can stretch it out with the lad's leftovers. She'll fry up nice for brekkie."

"Y'all won't eat me," said the girl.

"Ye goin te carry her?" said Khaz.

"I don't want te," said Mym.

"Shit, me neither."

"We could just do her here. Dress her down and cook up her haunches and smoke those stringy lil arms. Less te carry that way."

"Alright. Ye got the salt?"

"Sure." Mym swung her pack down and around and slowly started unrolling the lid, making sure the girl got a good look at the blued barrel of her [longarm].

"Hey lady they wouldn't eat me right?"

Daraway watched the dwarves as Khaz drew a flat metal file out of his tool roll and worked it over the adze of his [alpenstock]. "Truly I believe they might."

The girl put her dirty chin in her dirty hand for a moment. "Nah I don't think they will. Look, I'm Cousins and I'm gonna show y'all how to get where y'all need to get." She held a tiny hand out for shaking.

Mym stuck her pinky in a tiny box of salt and licked it off the tip. "We don't need any help."

"Y'all are gonna."

"There's only one road te follow."

"For now. But it don't go alone forever, and neither should y'all. Not with that fancy man tailing y'all."

Khaz stopped his filing and looked at the sky then at Mym. "If we keep this up and we'll be here all night," he said.

Mym threw the salt back into her pack. "When ye fall behind we aren't waitin for ye."

Cousins pulled her unshaken hand back into her poncho. "I won't fall behind."

They walked on. Daraway then the dwarves then the girl.

A hundred paces later the girl said, "Y'all really didn't see that man?"

"There's no man," said Mym.

Khaz shook his head.

Three feet above the others Daraway cast her eyes back along the track and over the fens on either side.

***

They carried on between the pools and though the sun was hidden its heat sat on everything like the backside of a great fevered glutton. It curled the weeds between the fens and set the dwarves huffing like they worked the bellows. Cousins took off her poncho and carried it wedged under her naked armpit and sweat off her back soaked the top of her trousers. Daraway only seemed to get taller and her legs longer and her gait smoother. She walked like a [dancer] and the way her hips swayed reminded Mym of the fire at the heart of the forge. As if she was an oscillating flame wrapped in a skin of sweet smelling wax.

Toward sunset whole assemblies of frogs set to arguing. Cousins had fallen a few steps behind. She called up, "Y'all got anything to eat?"

"Not for ye," said Mym.

Daraway dug out half a sausage and waited along the track.

Mym shook her head as she passed and again when she heard Cousins say, "Thanks."

They stopped there and set a fire out of bramble trimmings and the girl ate and slapped at the mosquitos. By moonsrise Daraway slept next to their fire with Cousins' head in her lap and Mym and Khaz [talked] in the low tones saved for stones.

She said, "We don't want her around. Not where we're goin and what we have te do. It'd be a cruelty."

"Bigger cruelty te abandon her out here."

"Now maybe. Didn't need te be, and ye know we can't take her farther. It'll only get harder."

"What do ye suggest we do?"

"Should've never let her come."

"Talkin that way isn't solvin anythin. How bout I just go on alone. I told ye I can do it for both of us."

"Don't start that again."

"I'm just sayin it'll fix both problems."

"It's what yer sayin that's the problem. Now and before when ye told her she didn't have nothin te worry bout."

"She don't so long as I'm here."

She shot him a look. "And the rest of us?

"What bout ye?"

"Dara can't face down her boogeyman?"

"I don't know. I don't know her as well as ye."

"And me?"

He laughed. "I see what this's bout. It's just a way of speakin."

"And a way of thinkin. One I don't care for."

"Fine."

"I mean it. Ye say those things and it makes ye think those things. And thinkin those things makes you say shit like I should just stay behind and see bout my da. Or just now sayin I should allow ye go and do what's mine by rights te do."

"I said fine." But he couldn't leave it. "Ye goin te be like this the whole time she's here?"

"Who?"

"That woman."

"I'll be how I want te."

"Ye tell her about us?"

"Isn't no us te tell about."

He threw the rind of his fruit into the fire. "Suppose not." He rolled into his blanket and onto his side and spoke no more.

She shook her head at his back and laid on hers and looked up hoping to see new stars but she saw only the wisps of clouds moving sideways across the sky's black bowl. Like a siege cauldron flipped upside down, seething and smoking boiling tar and ready to pour across the blistering land.

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> +1 [Stonespeaking]: ...having gone te the far side of the world she's spoke with stones who've never known a dwarf and ye got te wonder what tales they told... (4/10)

> +1 [Vengefulness]: ...vengeance is a core tenant of their culture. For humans it's a passing thing, but for dwarves it's a foundational way of being. Perhaps they can stand it because they live so long... (9/10)