Chapter Sixty-eight

The meeting didn’t end. It just changed course. They moved onto the next discussion: orks, and how to deal with them. I stopped paying much attention to it — my mind was elsewhere.

Pushover? I couldn’t believe that bastard Fenar would just go and call me a pushover in front of everyone. I wanted to be angry, I really did, but … he wasn’t wrong, was he? Being honest with myself wasn’t a comfortable thing, but I had to do it. The personal philosophy I had subscribed to all my life — as a human and as a spirit — was, in essence, the art of how to be a pushover. “It is what it is, just deal with it” or “Keep calm and carry on” sounded nice and all, but I had really let people walk all over me, hadn’t I? For god’s sake, my own death had been a result of taking over someone else’s duties just so the guy could go for a break he wasn’t meant to take. And then there was Wensah, then there was Fenar, and there was the very nature of my existence as a spirit, subservient to a host. Well, at least I liked Krissy, so I didn’t mind being a little bit subservient to her.

Were all spirits pushovers? Not being able to move around without a host didn’t help a spirit’s efforts to be more assertive, did it? At least until the host died and the spirit got to consume their souls. Even so, being a spirit was such an unfair existence. Was there anything I could do about it? Maybe there was. I hated to admit it, but I wanted to become like Wensah. A grand spirit. A god. I doubted anyone could push a god around.

I’d never been much of a “personal growth” enthusiast, but maybe it was time to change that. Maybe it was time to … to … I wasn’t sure. I had to think about this more later. For now, I turned my attention back to the meeting, in case something important was going on.

***

The “old man” Levoten Armat had stopped taking notes, almost as if he had lost interest in the whole issue of dangerous spirits and incompetent ranger generals. I supposed it was a sign that he had made up his mind one way or another, and there was no point in playing this weird blame-game anymore. I didn’t quite see how portraying Fenar and the rangers as “not up to the task” would win the guy’s vote on some mysterious military budget issue, but that wasn’t my problem.

On the issue of orks, the defense sub-committee was in agreement with Fenirig Arte and Sivaren Rols — the only good ork was a dead ork, and everyone present in the meeting room was eager to see more of the good ones. The rangers gave a quick update on their progress in reducing the barbarian population of Solace, as well as casualty rates, both civilian and military. Ranger patrols were everywhere — almost a hundred teams from Third, Fifth and Seventh Rangers combined, and they were repelling or even exterminating the barbarians left and right, which meant the enemy was going to call it a day and leave soon.

Getting reports from the navy was a much slower affair for obvious reasons. All everyone knew at this point was that only one of three pirate ships had been dealt with — courtesy of Krissy and yours truly. The other two had been spotted once or twice, but due to bad wind the galleys managed to outrun the normally faster sailing ships of the elven navy, and hide among smaller islands surrounding Solace. And that was that.

Over a hundred and fifty civilians had been taken. A horrifying number. Men, women and children, who had nothing good to look forward to, save for the thirty-four souls we had got back from the Graal’s Enormous Pride. Pushover or not, I’d done a good job there, and I was not going to regret anything.

Fortunately, Orkuz Graal’s adamance about fighting and dying in honorable duels with non-spiritualists — or mystics as the orks called them — gave the elves all the intel they needed.

Wensah had proved to be a decent interrogator, and the ginormous ork captain had spilled everything: where they had come from, where the ships would take the captives, how long before they would be sold to other ork clans, and so on. It was all useful information, and it made the planning for a retaliation-slash-rescue mission all the faster and more efficient.

I had a feeling Orkuz Graal’s willingness to share was partly a result of his firm belief that mere “ganks” wouldn’t be able to cause any harm to the glorious ork clans. I also had a feeling that the elves were going to prove him wrong. Well, post-mortem prove him wrong — that deadly duel wasn’t going to be cancelled, of that I was sure. And I was right. With reports and plans mostly discussed, the meeting was adjourned in about an hour, and we found ourselves marching to the parade-ground we’d seen earlier.

***

We arrived at the football pitch sized parade or training ground, and we found the captured orks standing in the middle of it, restrained with a variety of chains and ropes of all sorts and sizes. I guessed even if the elves had things like handcuffs, they’d be hard pressed to find one in their inventories that would fit around the thick wrists of the creatures.

A number of rangers stood guard around the beasts — archers and spearmen, all wearing the blueish-green robes of Fifth Rangers. Security was kind of tight.

Krissy and Kiwa came to a halt at the edge of the place along with the committee members and all those who came to observe the ongoings. Orkuz Graal and his green gang were about to be granted a wish, and it seemed The Hellspawn and Sivaren Rols were going to do the wish-granting.

‘What are they doing?’ Krissy whispered worriedly as Fenar and Sivaren Rols walked onto the paved square, checking and fiddling with their sheathed swords and daggers.

‘Oh, the masters of the rangers are always complaining about not getting proper exercise,’ Komi whispered back to her. For some reason she had chosen to stand with us rather than the committee members.

‘They … the two of them will fight the orks?’ Krissy asked in disbelief. ‘All of them? At once?’

Komi just nodded, the expression on her face quite sinister, bloodthirsty even, quite unlike the friendly smiles we’d seen earlier. She didn’t seem worried at all. I couldn’t decide if it was a wife’s misplaced trust in her husband, or absolute confidence based on knowing something others didn’t. It gave me the shivers.

Could Fenar and the other master really handle fourteen orks? I was basically looking at the equivalent of two lanky noobs, walking up to The Rock times fourteen, thinking they could challenge the pros and live. Then again, they wouldn’t be doing this if they didn’t think they could beat them, would they? Elves were a lot faster than orks … but still, the scene did not fill me with confidence.

‘You ain’t got this, Fenar, I don’t believe in you!’ I yelled at the man. Some good old fashioned and probably misplaced heckling. Or petty revenge for calling me a pushover. Or maybe both. Unfortunately, my thread was still there, and he heard me.

Fenar stopped, just a few meters from the green, barbarian mass, and turned around to glare at me. Well, at Krissy, since he couldn’t see me.

Call me Fenar one more time, you spirit of shit! I dare you! Damn fool! His thoughts thundered in my mind.

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Krissy flinched, and I decided it was time I cut the connection to Fenar.

‘Did something just happen?’ Fenar’s wife inquired, looking puzzled. Or intrigued, maybe.

‘Uhm, yeah. Kevin called your husband Fenar,’ she informed her.

‘Oh, no,’ the woman giggled, covering her mouth with her hand in a lady-like manner. ‘Only I get to call him that and get away with it.’

‘Everyone calls him that,’ Krissy argued.

‘Not to his face.’ Komi grinned.

Fenirig Arte and Sivaren Rols turned to the orks. Orkuz Graal was glaring down at them, grunting orkish words. I felt tempted to connect to him so I could understand more than just the word “ganks”, but it wasn’t all that important.

The guards unshackled the fourteen marauders, then rushed to the edges of the square to join the rest of the spectators.

It was that moment my Tentacle Horror Instinct chose to start talking to me again. Not as loudly as it had on the galley, but I could hear its nagging, telling me that the highest nutritional value belonged to ork souls, and I was a fool for not taking them.

Well, that was the second time someone or something called me a fool today — first Fenar, now Mr Instinct. I had to sort this out, and I had to do it soon.

The problem was that the last time I had tried, I’d nearly killed myself, apparently. I was not at all confident that I could attempt it again and live. Which left me with the less than ideal choice of Wensah. I was fairly certain she’d be able to help, but the thought of getting into more debts with that stupid goddess was enough to make my spiritual skin crawl. I was already under her thumb, and because of me, so was Krissy. We were her … errand boy and girl. We were in Solace because she wanted us to be here, and who knows when and where she’d take us next without us having a say in the matter.

From what I’d heard from some people back on good old Earth, this was how working for a large corporation felt like — helpless against the malevolent powers of the HR department, our freedoms curtailed at the whims of a CEO, our weekends taken away in the holy name of overtime, and if you dared complain about it, you were out of a job. I couldn’t believe I had managed to avoid all that in my old life, only to find myself an underpaid and underappreciated entry level employee of the Wensah-Corporation in this one.

Well, in all fairness to the goddess, she wasn’t into micromanagement, and deep down I knew she was my best chance to solve a number of problems, starting with Mr Instinct and ending with figuring out how to become a grand spirit myself. Until then, I just had to go along with her schemes and push Mr Instinct to the back as much as possible.

The clanking, rattling sounds of metal brought me back to the here and now, as the orks raided a pile of weapons on the ground, arming themselves and eying the two elves with suspicion. As I stretched my tenties out a little to look around at everyone, I realized it wasn’t just the orks eying the two power-rangers. Everyone was staring at them in silence, the audience anticipating something, but judging by the faces, even they weren’t sure what.

Krissy looked outright worried. She wasn’t a ranger, but she fought against a couple of the beasts, and even with the best familiar at her disposal, it hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park.

‘Are you just letting important people like them fight to the death? As a matter of course?’ Krissy whispered to Komi.

‘Dear, masters of rangers don’t become masters only because of their administration skills,’ Komi said, waving a hand, dismissing Krissy’s concerns.

‘But … everyone looks nervous,’ Krissy whispered again, looking at the rangers, the council members and the few civilians around the training ground.

‘It’s because most of them have never seen my Fenar or that oaf Sivro fight,’ she said, her prideful smile bright as day. ‘And by the way, I like the word ork. Strange how much it suits the creatures. How did you come up with it?’

‘It was Kevin.’ Krissy shrugged. ‘He said it’s the name for them where he comes from.’

‘Hm. Interesting.’ Komi nodded knowingly, or in confusion, I couldn’t tell. ‘Oh, they’re starting.’

***

No start signal had been given. Fenar and Sivaren Rols — or Sivro — simply drew their weapons, Orkuz Graal roared some orders at his orks, and the fight began.

I could barely see what was happening, and I had most of my tentacles pointing at the fight. The training ground transformed into a slaughterhouse in an instant. The two elves moved like bloodthirsty Duracell bunnies on fast forward, putting even Kiwa to shame, whom I had seen fighting using Mana. Her movements I’d been able to follow. These two? They were a blur.

The first ork — not Orkuz Graal — fell within two seconds, his head rolling on the ground before he could do anything, his black blood splattering everywhere. If Fenar had not slowed down for a moment to shake the blood off his sword, I’m not sure I’d have been able to tell which of them had done the deed.

Sivro’s first ork fell a split second later, three bleeding holes in his broad, green chest, concentrated on the right where the heart was. How in hell had the man managed to drive his sword through the beast three times without me seeing it properly? I had no answer. I knew elves were fast, but these two were something else entirely — I would have said they were spiritualist, but that would have required familiars. Which I would have seen. Or at least would have seen Mana flaring up around them. I came to the uncomfortable conclusion that the pair of them were just that good.

The orks didn’t seem unhappy though. They could also tell by the lack of Mana-flashes that their opponents — or more like executioners — weren’t cheating. Orkuz Graal and his remaining eleven orks applied themselves to the task admirably, trying to surround the two elves, swinging their huge weapons, kicking, punching, groaning and grunting. The two elves worked together as if they had been training together for this for the last decade. They moved swiftly, picking their victims in order, making sure neither of them was caught off guard.

Fenar got behind one of them so fast the poor sod couldn’t even blink before the elf’s dagger pierced his neck.

Sivro jumped higher I’d ever seen anyone jump, and on his way down he buried his sword into the head of another ork through the tippy-top of his skull. Black blood squirted from the green creature’s head as Sivro pulled his blade out as fast as he had driven it in, and the man was already onto the next.

A shiver ran through every single one of my tentacles as I watched. I’d seen fights, I’d participated in fights, but for god’s sake, this was just ridiculous. Completely unreal.

‘Krissy,’ I whispered.

‘What?’ she whispered back, her lips quivering as she watched the deadly spectacle.

‘Remind me never to piss off Master Fenirig Arte ever again!’

‘Uh-huh.’ She nodded, her eyes wide and glued to the scene.

The two masters mowed down the orks, one after another, like two elf-shaped hurricanes going through a field of shoddily planted crops. The small crowd of elves watched in silent awe, astonishment and probably horror. Just like I did.

In two minutes — a mere, measly, insignificantly short two minutes — Orkuz Graal was the only ork standing. Holding a machete-like thing in one hand and a mace in the other, he bellowed something at Fenar and Sivro, who were now standing on the corpse-littered ground some ten metres from the marauder-captain. The big ork screamed at them furiously but I got the feeling he was actually quite satisfied with all the glorious, honorable death around him, and couldn’t wait to partake himself. He charged the elves, swinging his weapons, building up momentum, probably planning to barrel into them like a bowling ball. Under the circumstances, it was a good plan. And it didn’t work. Of course it didn’t work. Orkuz Graal took his last step as a living being and fell to the ground with a dagger in his neck and a sword in his heart.

Mr Instinct started screaming, almost begging that I at least eat that last ork soul. I ignored it as much as I could — I didn’t want to pour spirit-fuel on the smouldering fire the Tentacle Horror’s hunger was. So, I just watched as the soul began to tremble, break and then disappear in a matter of ten seconds.

***

Everyone was quiet, and if I wasn’t mistaken, quite shaken — the rangers, the civilians, and three out of the five council members.

Komi had a satisfied smile on her face, and the liaison looked unperturbed. The older man and the two youngsters who had been playing opposition during the meeting for whatever reason, looked pale. I guessed they weren’t used to seeing this kind of violence — elves were nice and reasonable people after all. With a few exceptions.

The rangers present looked … jealous of their masters’ skills and physical abilities. I couldn’t blame them — who wouldn’t be? Kitala Iwani seemed jealous, too. She just stood there, gaping at the scene, at Fenar in particular. This did not escape Komi’s notice.

‘Krissintha!’ she leaned closer, whispering quite loudly so Kiwa could hear it too. ‘Please tell your bodyguard that the scarred man over there is my husband, and while I understand why she’d be drooling over him, I don’t appreciate it.’

Before Krissy could say or do anything, Kiwa turned away and quickly took a few steps to the side, muttering something about not drooling.

Komi stole a longing glance at her beloved Hellspawn-husband as he wiped just a little bit of sweat and black blood from his brow, then she said to Krissy,

‘I’d like to invite you for dinner tonight. To discuss a few things concerning your patron god.’ She looked over at Kiwa. ‘You can bring your bodyguard, if she promises to behave.’